LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS, 
AND OTHER SKETCHES 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE 

QUAKERS, AND OTHER 

SKETCHES 



IRVING B.^RICHMAN 

CONSUL GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES TO 
SWITZERLAND 




>r^/7 






DES MOINES 
THE HISTORICAL DEPARTMENT OF IOWA 

1894 



COPYRIGHT, i8g4 

By IRVING B. RICHMAN 

DES MOINES, IOWA 



El)t ?Lahrsitic i3rrss 

R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS CO., CHICAGO 



Lc 3-;i^o^2- 






INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

The Historical Department of Iowa was 
established in 1892 by vote of the Twenty- 
fourth General Assembly of the State. Its 
object is the promotion of historical collec- 
tions pertaining to Iowa and the territory 
from which Iowa was formed. The depart- 
ment is placed under the supervision of a 
board of trustees consisting of the Governor 
of the State, the Judges of the Supreme 
Court, the Secretary of State, and the Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction. 

The historical papers published in this 
volume are contributions to the work of the 
department. Two of them — the one on 
John Brown and the one on Black Hawk — 
have been passed upon and commended as 
original studies : the first by Frank B. San- 
born, Esq., Brown's biographer, and the 
second by the late Dr. Francis Parkman. 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE 
QUAKERS 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE 
QUAKERS. 

Is THERE room for another article on John 
Brown ? It would seem to be more than 
doubtful. His life has been written three 
times : by Redpath, by Webb, and by San- 
born ; by Sanborn in a way most thorough 
and painstaking. Many papers about him 
and his exploits have appeared in the maga- 
zines : not less than seven in the Atlantic 
Monthly, the first in 1865 and the last in 
1879 ,' two at least in the Century, and several 
in the North American Review, the Andover 
Review, and Lippincotfs. His career in Kan- 
sas has been minutely traced ; his foray in Vir- 
ginia has been described by his son and by 
persons who were his prisoners at Harper's 
Ferry. 

But the whole of Brown's story has not yet 
been told, not even by Mr. Sanborn. A part 
of it, and that an interesting part, remains to 
be told. This is the part supplied by the 
incidents of the sojourn of John Brown in 
Iowa from early in August, 1857, to April 
27th, 1858, and from February loth to about 

II 



12 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

March 7th, 1859: first at Tabor in Fremont 
County, and afterwards, and more especially, 
at Springdale in Cedar County. 

If one take the cars on the western bank of 
the Mississippi River at Davenport in Iowa 
and travel west on the Chicago, Rock Island 
and Pacific Railroad for forty miles, he will 
reach the town of West Liberty in Muscatine 
County. Then if he travel north on the 
Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern 
Railroad for six miles, he will reach the town 
of West Branch in Cedar County. Four 
miles due east from West Branch is the 
village of Springdale. But it is with West 
Branch that we first have to do. One day 
late in October, of the year 1856, there rode 
into the town of West Branch (not then a rail- 
way station) an elderly man, weary and travel- 
stained. He was mounted on a mule and 
led a horse. He made his way to the only 
tavern in the place, over the entrance to 
which hung the sign, "The Traveler's Rest." 
This tavern was kept by a genial, rosy-cheeked 
Quaker by the name of James Townsend. On 
dismounting the traveler asked his host: 
" Have you ever heard of John Brown of Kan- 
sas?" According to the story, Townsend, 
without replying, took from his vest pocket 
a piece of chalk and, removing Brown's hat, 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 1 3 

marked it with a large X ; he then replaced 
the hat and solemnly decorated the back of 
Brown's coat with two large X marks ; lastly 
he placed an X on the back of the mule. 
Brown in this way having been admitted to 
the tavern free list, Townsend said : " Friend, 
put the animals in that stable and walk into 
the house ; thee is surely welcome." Brown 
had just come from the stirring scenes of the 
Kansas Territory : from the battle of Black 
Jack, fought in the preceding June, and 
from Ossawatomie and the Lawrence foray, 
events that then were but a few weeks past ; 
and the suggestion has been made that in 
Brown's narrative of his Kansas adventures 
worthy James Townsend received a full equiv- 
alent for the buckwheat cakes and "sorghum" 
for which his hostelry was famous, and to which 
on this occasion John Brown doubtless did am- 
ple justice. Be that as it may, it is certain that, 
during Brown's short stay in West Branch, 
(he was in Chicago on Oct. 25th,) he heard 
of Springdale and of the strong anti-slavery 
sentiment of its shrewd, thrifty, Quaker popu- 
lation ; for henceforth this village became 
one of his places of frequent resort. 

Continuing his journey from Chicago, 
Brown went to Ohio, where were his family, 
and thence, with a stop or two in the State of 



14 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

New York, to Boston, Massachusetts. Here 
he first met Mr. F. B. Sanborn then just grad- 
uated from Harvard, who, twenty-eight years 
afterwards, became his biographer. While in 
Boston, Jan. 7th, 1857, Brown was made the 
agent of the Massachusetts-Kansas State 
Committee to receive two hundred Sharp's 
rifles, then stored at Tabor in Iowa. These 
rifles had been sent West by this committee in 
August, 1856, to be used for defense by the 
Free State settlers. They had got as far as 
Tabor, but for reasons not known to the com- 
mittee, had got no farther. During his stay 
in the East, Brown appeared before the Joint 
Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature 
appointed to investigate the Kansas situation ; 
spoke in the town hall at Concord where he 
had Mr. Emerson as a listener ; met Theodore 
Parker at the delivery of one of the latter's 
discourses in Music Hall, Boston ; ordered 
one thousand pikes from Charles Blair of 
Collinsville, Connecticut, — the handles to be 
six feet in length and the ferrules to be of 
strong malleable iron ; and last, but by no 
means least, about April ist, met Hugh 
Forbes, an Italio-Anglican swordsman and 
drill master, whom he hired to go to Tabor 
and make ready to drill the squad of men he 
purposed to assemble there on his return to 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 1 5 

the West. For this service Forbes was to 
receive one hundred dollars a month ; and 
six hundred dollars were on April ist, 1857, 
handed over to him by Brown to bind the 
bargain and as an advance payment. Forbes 
had been a silk merchant at Sienna and had 
served with Garibaldi in 1848-49; since 
coming to America he had eked out a scant 
subsistence as a translator on the staff of the 
New York Tribune and by giving fencing 
lessons. On April 13th, Brown left for the 
West, but did not reach Tabor until early 
in August. 

Three facts gave Tabor its importance in 
slavery days : its location in a free State ; 
the intense anti-slavery sentiment of its 
people; and its proximity to the northern 
line of Kansas territory. It had been founded 
in 1852 by a few families from Oberlin, Ohio, 
almost all of them Congregationalists ; and 
when in 1856 access to Kansas for Northern 
settlers, by way of St. Louis and the Missouri 
River, was practically denied by the Missou- 
rians, a new route through Iowa and Nebraska 
Territory was opened up by Dr. S. G. Howe 
and other Massachusetts men ; and this route 
had Tabor and Nebraska City for its western 
termini. Among the parties of Free State 
settlers that in 1856 came west over the new 



l6 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

route was one led by a Col. Eldridge. They 
had started without arms, (some of them from 
as distant a State as Maine,) having been 
promised that arms would be supplied them 
at Albany, then at Buffalo, after that at Cleve- 
land, and finally at Chicago. But, on reach- 
ing Tabor, they still were defenseless; more- 
over, they were about to mutiny. They were 
with difficulty persuaded to go forward by 
General James H. Lane who made them a 
spirited speech. It doubtless was the exper- 
ience of this party, or of some similar party at 
about this time, that influenced the Massachu- 
setts-Kansas State Committee to send to the 
West the two hundred Sharp's rifles which 
already have been mentioned. These rifles, 
on their arrival in Tabor, had been stored in 
the barn on the premises belonging to the 
Rev. John Todd (the Congregational clergy- 
man of the place) to await a favorable oppor- 
tunity for smuggling them through Nebraska 
City and over the border into Kansas. Such 
an opportunity had not yet presented itself 
when in August, 1857, Brown came with his 
order for the arms from the Massachusetts 
Committee. They were promptly given into 
his charge by Todd' and, on August 13th, 

1 1 had two cannon in my barn for a considerable time, 
besides boxes of guns, sabres, cartridges and clothing; also 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 1 7 

Brown wrote to Mr. Sanborn at Boston: "I 
find the arms and ammunition voted me by 
the Massachusetts State Committee nearly all 
here and in middling good order — some a 
little rusted. Have overhauled and cleaned 
up the worst of them." 

On August 9th, Hugh Forbes arrived. 
When engaged he had been directed to start 
West as soon as possible, but he did not do 
so until he had spent all of the six hundred 
dollars which Brown had then paid him. Now 
that he was on the ground with the Manual 
of Tactics prepared by himself, entitled the 
Patriotic Volunteer,^ the business of military 

twenty boxes of Sharp's rifles. Captain Brown came for 
them and I went out with him to the barn and showed him 
where they were. — Letter of Rev. John Todd, dated May 
25th, i8g2. 

I The complete title of Forbes's book is : "Manual for the 
Patriotic Volunteer on Active Service in Regular and Irreg- 
ular War, being the Art and Science of obtaining and 
maintaining Liberty and Independence." The first part of 
the book is devoted to '' popular or irregular war," and the 
remainder to " regular war." There is marked similarity 
between the methods of irregular or guerilla warfare recom- 
mended in Forbes' book and those practiced by John 
Brown. Indeed, it is not improbable that Brown's methods 
— particularly those upon which he had decided for his 
Virginia campaign — were to some extent derived from this 
book. It is known to have been Brown's intention when he 
left Tabor for Ashtabula, Ohio, not merely to establish a 
school of instruction there but also in Canada, [Letter of 
C. W, Moffat to F. B. Sanborn quoted at page 425 of San- 



1 8 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

instruction was at once begun. "We are 
beginning to take lessons," wrote Brown to 
his wife and family, on August 17th, "and 
have, we think, a very capable teacher." At 
this time there seems to have been no one 
with Brown at Tabor except his son Owen. 
Lessons in the Manual were given to Brown 
by Forbes and both practiced target shooting. 
No drilling was done by Brown in public ; 
indeed, neither he nor Forbes was much 
seen. They kept themselves close. But the 
good opinion of Forbes, which Brown had at 
first conceived, did not last. He proved to 
be an intractable, vain-glorious person ; not 
willing to serve in the capacity of drill-master, 
but desirous himself of becoming the head of 
a movement for liberating the slaves.* The 

born's Life and Letters of John Brown] thus providing for 
the creation of a number of bands which should operate 
separately yet in concert. On the advisabihty of bands 
such as these, Forbes says at paragraph 30 of the Manual: 
"A single band, whether large or small, would have but a 
poor chance of success — it would be speedily surrounded; 
but a multiplicity of little bands, some three to ten miles 
distant from each other, yet in connection and communica- 
tion, cannot be surrounded, especially in a chain of well 
wooded mountains, such as the Appenines." 

»" He [Forbes] said further that in the course of their 
[Forbes' and Brown's] conversations as to the plan by 
which they should more effectually counteract this invasion, 
[that of Kansas by the Slave States] he suggested the 
getting up of a stampede of slaves secretly qu tl^e border of 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. IQ 

outcome was that on November 2d, Forbes, 
in disgust, left Brown for the East/ The 
measure of Brown's infatuation with Forbes on 
first meeting him, and even for a time after 
he came to Tabor, is surprising. While in 
the East, Brown had not taken Sanborn or 
Parker or Gerritt Smith into his confidence as 
to his Virginia plan, but to Forbes he had 
divulged all. It is worthy of remark in pass- 
ing that the first written intimation of this plan 
given to any one by Brown was to his wife. 
It is contained in the following sentence of a 
letter to her from Tabor, dated August 17th : 
"Should no disturbance occur [in Kansas], 
we may possibly think best to work back east- 
ward ; cannot determine yet." 

The desertion of Forbes compelled Brown 
to abandon his project of a school of military 

Kansas and Missouri which Brown disapproved, and on 
his part suggested an attack upon the border States with a 
view to induce the slaves to rise, and so keep the invaders 
at home to take care of themselves." — Seiiafor lVi//iam H. 
Seward in his examination before Senator Mason' s Committee 
on the John Brown Affair. 

I" I had the impression it [the quarrel between Forbes 
and Brown] was on account of want of pay; that Brown 
had no men to drill ; that he [Forbes] went out [to Tabor] 
to drill some men and they had none, and that Brown did 
not pay him." — Senator Henry Wilson in his examination 
before Senator Mason's Committee on the John Drown 
Affair. 



20 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

instruction for himself and such followers as 
he should succeed in gathering about him at 
Tabor. Followers themselves were scarce. 
He therefore decided to go to Kansas, assem- 
ble a number of the tried men of the Kansas 
conflict, proceed to Ashtabula, Ohio, and 
there establish a military school at which his 
men could be instructed. He also decided 
that his next move against slavery would be 
made somewhere in the State of Virginia. At 
Lawrence, Kansas, he enlisted John E. Cook, 
whom he had first met after the battle of 
Black Jack, Luke F. Parsons, who had also 
been with him in Kansas in 1856, and Richard 
Realf. At Topeka he was joined by Aaron 
D. Stephens, (then known as C. Whipple,) 
Charles W. Moffat, and John Henrie Kagi. 
With these men he went to Tabor, where in 
the meantime had come William H. Leeman 
and Charles Plummer Tidd, both of whom 
had formerly served with him. Toward the 
last of November he and his band left Tabor 
en route for Ashtabula, but not until Brown 
had said to Jonas Jones (in whose care his 
letters had been coming to him and in whose 
house the military lessons had been given), 
" Good bye, Mr. Jones, you will hear from 
me. We've had enough talk about ' bleeding 
Kansas.' I will make a bloody spot at another 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 2 1 

point to be talked about." ^ On leaving Ta- 
bor, Brown told Cook, Realf, and Parsons 
that his ultimate destination was Virginia. 
This was not welcome news to these three 
of his men, and they were with difficulty 
prevailed upon to accompany him. But ac- 
compan}' him they did, and after several 
weeks of hard travel over the plains, the party 
reached Springdale — probably late in Decem- 
ber, 1857. 

Springdale, as has been stated before, is a 
small village in Cedar countv, Iowa. Among 
. its first residents were John H. Painter, a 
Quaker, who came in 1849 ? ^.nd Ann Cop- 
poc, a Quakeress, and Dr. H. C. Gill, who 
came in 1850. During the next few years 
many came, almost all of them Quakers ; so 
that when visited by Brown and his band in 
1857, it was a thriving Quaker settlement. 
Its one street, which in fact is but a part of 
the public highway, is bordered on either hand 
by modest frame houses surrounded by spac- 
ious yards and shaded by the over-hanging 
branches of trees. On all sides of the village 
the green and undulating fields stretch away 
to the horizon. Within its homes the pleasant 

I This remark was made in the presence of William M. 
Brooks, Esq., of Tabor, now President of Tabor College. 
From Letter of President Brooks, dated May jot/i, iSg2. 



22 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

"thee" and "thy" of the Quaker constantly 
are heard ; and there prevails an air of 
peace and serenity which is inexpressibly 
soothing and comforting. Today, twenty- 
eight years after the abolition of slavery, the 
men of Springdale vote the Republican ticket 
with very nearly the same unanimity that they 
did in i860. From this fact one may infer 
something as to the political spirit of its good 
people in the 50's, when to be an Abolitionist 
generally was to be more or less despised. 

As has been seen, it was not Brown's origi- 
nal intention to stop long at Springdale. It 
had been his purpose to stop there merely 
long enough to sell his teams and wagons, 
and then to proceed by rail to Ashtabula county, 
Ohio. But the panic of '57 had begun and 
money was scarce. He was nearly out of 
funds, and unable to raise any. Under these 
circumstances, he decided to spend the winter 
at the village, and to resume his journey early 
in the spring. He was more than welcome, 
and so were his men. To the Quakers he and 
his band stood as the embodiment of the 
sentiment against human slavery which that 
sect so firmly held. To be sure, John Brown 
and his followers were not men of peace ; 
they, one and all of them, had fought hard 
and often in the Kansas war ; but much was 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 23 

pardoned to them by the Quakers because of 
the hoHness of their object ; for, while the 
Quaker would not concede that bloodshed 
ever was right, it was with extreme leniency 
that he chided him who had shed blood to 
liberate the slave. 

Brown's men — Kagi, Stephens, Cook, 
Realf, Tidd, Parsons, Moffat, Leeman, Owen 
Brown, and a negro, Richard Richardson, 
who had been picked up at Tabor, were given 
quarters in the house of Mr. William Maxon 
which was situated about three miles north- 
east of the village. Maxon himself was not a 
Quaker, and the direct responsibility of hous- 
ing men-at-arms was thus avoided by this 
Quaker community. Brown, however, was 
received into the house of the good Quaker, 
John H. Painter, who became one of his 
staunchest and most confidential friends. 
The time spent in Springdale was a time of 
genuine pleasure to Brown's men. They en- 
joyed its quiet, as also the rural beauty of 
the village and the gentle society of the 
people. There were long winter evenings to 
be passed in hospitable homes ; evenings 
marked by discussions of slavery or by 
stories of perils and escapes on the border. 
Then, in turn, there was the pleasure — not 
unmixed with a certain wonder and awe — 



24 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

which was afforded to the villagers by the 
presence among them of men of such strik- 
ing parts and individuality as were these 
followers of John Brown. It was not every 
village that was favored with the society of 
a John Henrie Kagi, for instance, a man of 
thought and of varied accomplishments — a 
stenographer, among other things, and, at 
one time, correspondent in Kansas for the 
New York Post; or of an Aaron D, Stephens,' 
a man who had served in the United States 
Army, been sentenced by a court-martial to 
be shot for assaulting an officer who it was 
said was brutally chastising one of the men, 
but had escaped and was now enlisted with 
Brown under the name of C. Whipple ; or of 
a Richard Realf,"" eloquent, poetic, impetuous; 

1 Aaron D. Stephens was a member of Company F., 
First Dragoons, U. S. Army. On May 251!), 1S55, he, to- 
gether with three comrades, was sentenced to death for par- 
ticipation in what is called in his sentence " a drunken riot 
and mutiny against a major of the regiment." The Court 
Martial which passed the sentence convened at Don Fer- 
nandez de Taos, New Mexico, where the regiment was 
when the mutiny occurred. Afterwards, on August qth, 
1855, the sentence of death was commuted by President 
Pierce to three years at hard labor, under guard, and with- 
out pay; but ere this, Stephens had made his escape. 

2 " I am a native of England. I was born in the year 
1834. I will therefore be twenty-six next Jvme. I first came 
to this country in 1854. My parents are living now in Eng- 
land. At the time I left England my father was filling the 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 25 

claiming to have been the especial protege of 
Lady Noel Byron, and suspected of having 
been mixed up in foreign political troubles ; 
or of a John Edwin Cook, also poetic, hand- 
some in flowing hair, a masterly penman, lily 
fingered perhaps, but none the less of great 
courage and the crack shot of the company. 
It was not all play for Brown's men while 
in Springdale. Brown himself never for a 
moment lost sight of the great end which he 
had in view. Aaron D. Stephens was ap- 
pointed drill master, and a regular daily 
routine of military study and drill insisted 
upon. Five o clock was the rising hour ; im- 
mediately after breakfast study was begun and 
continued until nine or ten o'clock ; books 
were then laid aside and the men drilled in 
the school of the soldier on the broad sward 
to the east of the Maxon house. In the after- 
noon a sort of combined gymnastics and 

position which he now fills, namely, an officer of the English 
rural police. My father was a blacksmith at one time. 
That trade he learned himself. He was a peasant, which 
means an agricultural laborer. I had been a protege of 
Lady Noel Byron. I had disagreed with Lady Byron on 
account of some private matters, which it is not necessary 
to explain here, but which rendered me desirous of finding 
some other place in which to dwell. Moreover my instincts 
were democratic and republican or at least anti-monarchical. 
Therefore I came to America." — Richard Real/ in his testi- 
mony before Senator Afasofz's Committee on the yohn Broxvii 
affair. 



26 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

company manoeuverswere practiced, the object 
of which apparently was to inure the men to 
the strain of running, jumping, vaulting, 
and firing in different and difficult atti- 
tudes/ Among other exercises was a sword 
drill which was performed with long wooden 
sabres, one of which — the one used by Owen 
Brown — is still preserved in the Maxon 
family. Tuesday and Friday evenings were 
set apart for the proceedings of a mock legis- 
lature which had been organized. One of 
the sons of Mr. William Maxon remembers 
that he served in this honorable body in the 
capacity of the member from Cedar county. 
The sessions were held either in the large sit- 
ting-room of the Maxons, or in the larger 
room of the district school building, a mile 
and a half away. There were a speaker, a 
clerk of the House, and regular standing 
committees. Bills were introduced, referred, 
reported back, debated with intense earnest- 
ness and no little ability, and finally brought 

I Forbes' Manual was used in these drills — especially 
that part of it devoted to guerrilla warfare. Paragraph 57 
of the Manual reads as follows: "The irregular troops 
cannot be expected to attain a high degree of military in- 
struction; nevertheless the foot guerrilla should with haste, 
and even hurry, be practiced in forming single and double 
files ... in the use of the knife, of fire-arms; also to 
creep along the ground, to climb and to hide and to form 
the chain of skirmishers." 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 27 

to vote. Kagi was the keenest debater, and 
Realf and Cook orators of very considerable 
powers. The other evenings of the week 
were passed by each one according to his 
fancy. There were the good substantial home- 
steads of the Painters, the Lewises, the Var- 
neys, the Gills, that could be visited ; or 
Richard Realf had consented to address the 
Lyceum at Pedee, and all Springdale was 
going to hear him ; this in part for the pleas- 
ure there was in listening to so good a 
speaker, but more perhaps because of the 
anti-slavery views to which in all probability 
he would give utterance, to the amazement 
and scandal of the Pedeeites who werestronsf 
Democrats. 

It is perhaps not surprising that, under 
conditions such as these, some of the hardy 
fellows of Brown's command should have 
been visited by thoughts of love. All were bach- 
elors, and, moreover, all were young: Kagi, 
twenty-three; Cook, twenty-three or four; 
Realf, twenty-three ; Stephens, twenty-seven ; 
Parsons, twenty-two ; Leeman, eighteen ; 
Tidd, twenty-five or six; Moffat, thirty; 
Owen Brown twenty-nine or thirty. Stephens 
and Cook and Parsons c^ave unmistakable 
proofs of the birth of the tender passion 
within them. And even Owen Brown, who 



28 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

seems to have been a bachelor b}- determina- 
tion and from principle and who never mar- 
ried, went so far as to divulge the fact that 
there was one maiden near Springdale whom 
he would marry, if he ever married at all, but 
to whom, out of abundant caution, he had 
resolved, never even to speak. 

Brown himself did not remain at Spring- 
dale throughout the winter, but soon pushed 
on East to find and send back Forbes, to 
raise money, and to confer with Gerritt 
Smith, Sanborn, Parker and others. But be- 
fore going he took time earnestly to consult 
with his friends. Gill, Maxon and Painter. 
What he disclosed to them of his plans and 
purposes is substantially what he afterwards 
(on February 22d, 1858,) disclosed to Gerritt 
Smith and F. B. Sanborn at Peterboro, New 
York, namely, a scheme of invasion of Vir- 
ginia. He also, it seems, intimated (at least 
to Gill) that the point of invasion would be 
Harper's Ferry.* Gill, Maxon, and Painter, 

^"Some time toward Spring, John Brown came to my 
house one Sunday afternoon. He informed me that he 
wished to have some private talk with me ; we went into the 
parlor. He then told me his plans for the future. He had 
not then decided to attack the Armory at Harper's Ferry, 
but intended to take some fifty to one hundred men into the 
hills near the Ferry and remain there until he could get to- 
gether quite a number of slaves, and then take what con- 
veyances were needed to transport the negroes and their 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 29 

as afterwards Smith and Sanborn, tried to 
dissuade him from attempting this hardy 
enterprise. Mr. Maxon's sons say that, on 
more than one occasion, their father sat up late 
into the night with Brown contending with 
him on the practicability and utility of his 
scheme. But he was inflexible. He not only 
had all faith in his little band, pronouncing 
every one of them a brave man, but believed 
himself to be the especial instrument of God 
for the destruction of slavery. 

There were other incidents of John Brown's 
brief stay in Springdale. The following is one 
of them. One day he was sitting in the house 
of Mr. Griffith Lewis. Mrs. Lewis sat near 
by. Her youngest daughter — a school-girl — 
took a pair of scissors, and, standing behind 

families to Canada. And in a short time after the excite- 
ment had abated, to make a strike in some other Southern 
State; and to continue on making raids, as opportunity 
offered, until slavery ceased to exist. I did my best to con- 
vince him that the probabilities were that all would be killed. 
He said that, as for himself, he was willing to give his life 
for the slaves. He told me repeatedly, while talking, that 
he believed he was an instrument in the hands of God 
thr.ough which slavery would be abolished. I said to him: 
'You and your handful of men cannot cope with the whole 
South.' His reply was: 'I tell you, Doctor, it will be the 
beginning of the end of slavery.' He also told me that but 
two of his men, Kagi and Stephens, knew what his inten- 
tions were." — From Letter of Dr. H. C. Gill, dated June 
1st, i8g2. 



30 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS 

Brown's chair, lifted them as if to cut a lock 
from his hair, at the same time casting an en- 
quiring glance at her mother, " John Brown," 
said Mrs. Lewis, " my daughter wishes a lock 
of thy hair." " Well, she can have it," said 
Brown, " but I would advise her to burn it." 
It was not burned, and is still in the posses- 
sion of the daughter — a valued keepsake. 

At the time John Brown's men were stay- 
ing at Springdale, there were living with their 
mother in the village, in a quaint frame house 
yet standing, two young men of strong char- 
acter, Edwin and Barclay Coppoc. Edwin 
was twenty-four years old and Barclay twenty. 
Barclay, being in danger from consumption, 
had found it necessary to travel, and for a 
time had served with a Company of liberators 
in Kansas. They both took much interest in 
Brown, his men and his cause, and at length 
enlisted under his leadership. 

On April 27th, Brown returned from the 
East with some funds in hand and more 
promised, and gave orders for the expedition 
to move. He wrote to his wife : " We start 
from here to-day, and shall write you again 
when we stop, which will be in two 'or three 
days." The immediate destination of the 
band proved to be Chatham, Canada West. 
The leave-taking between them and the peo- 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 3! 

pie of Springdale was one of tears. Ties 
which had been knitting through many weeks 
were sundered, and not only so, but the 
natural sorrow at parting was intensified by 
the consciousness of all that the future was full 
of hazard for Brown and his followers. Before 
quitting the house and home of Mr, Maxon 
where they had spent so long a time, each of 
Brown's band wrote his name in pencil on the 
wall of the parlor, where the writing still can 
be seen by the interested traveler. The part 
of the wall where the names are written is 
protected by a door opening against it, and to 
this cause, doubtless, is chiefly due the preser- 
vation of the writing for more than thirty 
years. The old house itself, which was built 
of cement and gravel in 1839, is still standing, 
but for a good while has been unoccupied. It 
is falling into decay, yet is full of interest. 
I went to see it not many weeks ago accom- 
panied by a son of Mr. William Maxon. The 
boundaries of the old drill ground near by 
still can be made out. The old evergreen 
trees still shade the structure on all sides. The 
path that formerly led to the front door is 
grass -grown and obscured, but still can be 
traced between the two large lilac bushes that 
to-day stand on either side of it, as they did 
vvhen Brp^yji's band first approached the house. 



32 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

The large west front room in which the mock 
legislature, as well as informal talks of the 
band, were held, is well preserved ; also the 
commodious kitchen where the meals were 
served by Mrs. Maxon, — a woman as resolute 
and uncompromising in her abolitionism as 
was her husband in his, and who still lives at 
an advanced age, — and the small attic bed- 
room in which Owen Brown used to practice 
short-hand which he was learning from Kagi, 
and where all the band slept. The cellar of 
this old house is hardly less interesting than 
the house itself ; for in it, in the days of 
slavery, Mr. Maxon constantly was keeping 
hid small parties of fugitive negroes from Mis- 
souri. The fire-place by which it was made 
comfortable in winter, may still be seen. 

The men who left Springdale with Brown, 
besides those who originally had come there 
with him, were George B. Gill and Steward 
Taylor — the latter a young Canadian. The 
Coppocs did not go with him, but were in- 
tending to join him soon. On reaching 
Chatham, Canada West, arrangements were 
made for holding a Constitutional Convention. 
Richard Realf wrote to Dr. Gill on April 30th: 
"Here, [at Chatham] we intend to remain 
till we have perfected our plans, which will be 
in about ten days or two weeks, after which 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 33 

we Start for China. Yesterday and this morn- 
ing we have been very busy in writing to Gerritt 
Smith, and Wendell Phillips and others of like 
kin to meet us in this place on Saturday, the 
8th of May, to adopt our Constitution, decide 
a few matters, and bid us good-bye. Then 

we start The signals and mode of 

writing are (the old man [John Brown] in- 
forms me) all arranged Remember 

me to all who know our business, but to all 
others be dumb as death." The Convention 
assembled on the 8th of May, adopted the Con- 
stitution which has been so much wondered 
at and derided, and two days later proceeded 
to name officers for the government which had 
been established. John Brown was named 
as Commander in Chief, Kagi, as Secretary of 
War, Richard Realf, as Secretary of State, 
and George B. Gill, as Secretary of the Treas- 
ury. But meantime Hugh Forbes had been 
busy writing letters to Sanborn, Dr. Howe 
and Theodore Parker in which he threatened 
to tell all that he knew of Brown's plans. He 
even wrote to Senators Sumner and Wilson, 
and managed to get an interview with Senator 
Seward at Washington. In view of these facts, 
it was decided by Gerritt Smith and Brown's 
friends in Massachusetts (with the exception 
of Mr. T. W. Higginson who protested against 



34 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

the decision) that the scheme must for the 
present be abandoned. Brown, therefore, was 
hastily summoned to meet George L. Stearns, 
and others of his friends in New York, in 
which city he arrived about May 2 2d. On 
May 24th, a consultation was held in Boston 
between Smith, Parker, Howe, Stearns, and 
Sanborn, and the conclusion reached that 
Brown must immediately go to Kansas and 
should be provided with money to that end, 
and, for the present to, no other. On May 
31st, Brown called on Higginson, expressed 
his disappointment at the action taken by 
Smith, Parker and the others, and plainly 
intimated that, were it not for his dependence 
upon these gentlemen for money, he would 
proceed to the consummation of his Virginia 
undertaking, Forbes or no Forbes. 

Brown's men were compelled to separate 
by this new turn in affairs and to find, as best 
they could, a temporary means of livelihood. 
Brown himself, his indomitable second in 
command, Kagi, and Charles P. Tidd went to 
Kansas, where they were soon joined by 
Stephens. Realf was sent to New York to 
stop the mouth of Forbes ; Gill came back to 
Iowa ; Owen Brown, Parsons, and Moffat 
went to Ohio ; Cook, after some little time 
spent in Ohio, went forward to Harper's 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 35 

Ferry, Virginia, where he carefully took note 
of everything ; studied the formation of the 
country and ascertained the whereabouts of 
the dwellings of prominent persons. It thus 
becomes apparent that, at least by this time, 
Harper's Ferry had been definitely selected 
by Brown as the point of invasion, and that 
Cook had been so apprised 

The homesickness which beset the hearts 
of the little company, after their separation 
from Springdale friends and scenes, is made 
plain by the following letter from John E. 
Cook, which has not before been in print. 

Chatham, Canada West, May 6th, 1858. 
My Dear Sisters :^ 

I feel lonely here, and having at present nothing 
to do, I have concluded to let my pen follow my 
thoughts, and so I am writing to you. I am here, 
but my mind and heart are with you in your happy 
home. ..... I wish to write to my parents, 

sisters and brother, but dare not at present on 
account of future plans. For, should they know 
that I am stopping here, it would awaken suspicion 
as to the cause of it. And then, besides, Mr. B, 
[John Brown] says he had rather we would not 
write until we leave here ; for which request he 

has good reasons Tim.e hangs heavily on 

my hands while waiting here ; and there is but 

I The young women of one of the Springdale families in 
which Cook had become intimate, 



36 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

one thing that keeps me from being absolutely 
unhappy, and that is the consciousness that I am 
in the path of duty. I long for the loth of May 
[the day fixed upon for the final proceedings at 
Chatham] to come. I am anxious to leave this 
place ; to have my mind occupied with the great 
work of our mission. [The Virginia enterprise 
was frequently referred to by Brown's men as a 
mission.] For, amid the bustling, busy scenes of 
the camp, I should be less lonely and therefore 
more happy than at present. I did not know till 
I left you that there was so much of selfishness in 
my nature; that there would be so great a struggle 
between the desires of a selfish heart and my 
manifest duty. But so it is. We do not know 
ourselves till we are tried in the great crucible of 
time and circumstances 

The prospects of our cause are growing brighter 
and brighter. Through the dark gloom of the 
future I fancy I can almost see the dawning light 
of Freedom ;..... that I can almost hear the 
swelling anthem of Liberty rising from the millions 
who have but just cast aside the fetters and the 
shackles that bound them. But ere that day 
arrives, I fear that we shall hear the crash of the 
battle shock and see the red gleaming of the can- 
non's lightning. 

By the way, the Lecompton Bill has passed both 
Houses, and poor Kansas is admitted into the 
Union as a slave State. You see, therefore, that 
my prophecy in regard to that matter is fulfilled. 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 37 

Well, taking all things into consideration, I am 
not sorry that it has passed, for it will help us in 
our work. I shall expect to hear of some hard 
battles in Kansas. 

Enclosed you will find a few flowers that I 
gathered in my rambles about town. They are 
the earliest flowers that bloom in this region. 

Accept them with my best wishes Realf 

asks to be remembered and sends his best 
wishes for your welfare. We are all well save 
hard colds 

I remain, as ever, your affectionate brother, 

J. E. Cook. 
P. S. Please direct to me in care of E. A. Fobes, 
Lindenville, Ashtabula County, Ohio. 

Write immediately, 

J. E. Cook. 

As soon as Brown began to get distinct 
intimations from his friends in the east that 
funds would not be forthcoming for the 
immediate prosecution of his Virginia scheme, 
he made known the fact to his band, and to 
some of them, who had gone to Ohio to find 
work, wrote the two letters printed below. 
These letters are not to be found in any life 
of Brown, nor, I think, in any of the magazine 
articles about him which have appeared. 



38 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

Chatham, Canada West, i8th of May, 1858. 
Dear Friends, All : — 

The letter of George [B. Gill], of the 13th inst,, 
is received, by which we learn of your safe arrival; 
also that you do not find the best encouragement 
about business. 1 will only inquire if you, any of 
you, think the difficulties you have experienced so 
far, are sufficient to discourage a man ? I should 
not hesitate for one moment to inquire out some 
good farmer's family in the country and say to 
them [that] I was travelling to Pennsylvania, or 
some other part East ; that I had got out of money, 
and wanted work for a while ; that I did not wish 
to engage for a long time until I could see whether 
I could give satisfaction or not, and whether I 
should like to stay or not. I would offer to work a 
few days for my board, and just what more a respec- 
table man would be willing to give me, on trial. In 
that way I would save my board bill, at any rate, 
and be making acquaintances and be finding out 
about chances and wages. I would not be afraid 
of spoiling myself by working hard on such con- 
ditions for a few days. I and three others were 
in exactly such a fix in the spring of 181 7, between 
the seaside and Ohio, in a time not only of extreme 
scarcity of money, but of the greatest distress for 
want of provisions known during the nineteenth 
century. It was the next year after the " cold 
summer," as it has ever since been called ; and, 
would you believe it? some of that company are 
on their legs yet. I would say I was going 
to Pittsburgh, Pa., or to Bedford, or to Chambers- 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 39 

burg, or to some other large town in that direction. 
We shall all be obliged to hold on somewhere 
until we can get more funds, and until we can 
know better how to act. We here are busy getting 
information and making other preparations. I 
believe no time has yet been lost. Owing to the 
panic on the part of some of our Eastern friends, 
we may be compelled to hold on for months yet. 
But what of that? What lam most afraid of is 
that some of you will be in great distress to show 
your arms, or to show yourselves to be something 
uncommon, or something to gain notice, or to get 
some help to keep the knowledge you have of 
your own business. I am sure that "where there 
is a will there is a way." I am negotiating about 
that way, as fast as possible. I would like to have 
you keep track of each other, so that all can col- 
lect when best, and do not spoil any work by 
impatience. You shall be posted up, as soon as 
anything comes to post up with. It is all well 
that you are not here ; this is no place for you. 
You may see some or all of us soon ; or you may 
not for some days. I want all to see this who can. 
You will get something more soon. 

Your Friend. 
I wrote as above because of the vein of blue 
your letter seems to contain." 

To this letter the following postscript was 
appended by Richard Realf : 

P. S. Dear George, and dear friends, all : 
Last night I received the letter alluded to in 



40 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

"Uncle's" together with the postage stamps, for 
which I thank Owen. I do not wonder at your 
impatience ; it is natural that men who have cut 
themselves loose from all other associations, pur- 
posely to devote themselves to a great and worthy 
end, should be chafed by difficulties and delays. 
Yet in the exact proportion of our true devotion 
to this cause, will be the true adherence unto it, 
though months and years may intervene before we 
can make our hope a reality. Having devoted our 
lives to this matter, our lives necessarily belong to 
it — no moment of time is ours — it is all its : a little 
earlier or later does not matter ; for remember 
that " they also serve who only stand and wait." 
" Instant in season and out of season," is the mark 
of true manhood ; perhaps this delay was meant 
to test us— to try, not our intensity of feeling, but 
our calmness of endurance. " He who endureth 
unto the end," you know ; and the end of this 
cloud will come ; perhaps it is very nigh unto us. 
Let us believe in God. I know he will not let his 
work go unfinished. Much love from, all to all. 
No letters from our friends in Iowa. Lookup ! the 
darkest hour is just before the dawn. I will write 
you again at more length soon. Truly, R. R." 

Chatham, Canada West, May 21st, 1858. 
Dear Son [Owen Brown] and other friends, all : 

The letters of three of your number are received, 
dated on the i6th by which we learn the difficul- 
ties you find in getting employment. It appears 
that all but three have managed to stop their 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 4I 

board bills ; and I do hope that the balance will 
follow the man-like and noble example of patience 
and perseverance set them by the others, instead 
of being either discouraged or out of humor. 
The weather is so wet here that no work can be 
obtained. I have only received $15 as yet from 
the East ; and such has been the effect of the 
course taken by F. [Forbes] on our eastern friends 
that I have some fears that we shall be compelled 
to delay further action for the present. They urge 
us to do so ; promising liberal assistance after a 
while. I am in hourly expectation of help suffi- 
cient to pay off our bills here and to take us 
on to Cleveland to see and advise with you, which 
we shall do at once when we get the means. Sup- 
pose we do have to defer our direct efforts ; shall 
great and noble minds either indulge in useless 
complaints, or fold their arms in discouragement, 
or sit in idleness when at least we may avoid los- 
ing much gained? It is in times of difficulty that 
men show what they are. It is in such times that 
men mark themselves. " He that endureth unto the 
end," the same shall get his reward. Are our 
difficulties sufficient to make us give up one of the 
noblest enterprises in which men were ever 
engaged? Write James M. Bell, 

Your Sincere Friend. 

Cook's efforts to find Avork, in accordance 
with Brown's advice as given above, are told 
by him in the following letter to his Iowa 
correspondents. The penmanship of this 



42 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

letter is not a little remarkable, being not 
only perfect throughout, but in part executed 
with such minuteness as hardly to be legible 
except by means of a lens. 

Lawrence, Kansas, June 6th, 1858. 

My Dear Sisters : 

I am, as you see by the date of this, still in 
Ohio.^ How long I shall remain here is uncertain. 
But I hope not long, for I am tired of this delay. 
There are two causes which keep us here. The 
first and most important one is the want of funds 
to take us to our destination. Those who promised 
to raise the money at the shortest notice have 
failed to do so. So we are detained. And, in 
order that the Old Gentleman [John Brown] may 
save the little he has got, we have separated, and 
are most of us working for our board. Times are 
so hard here that we can get no chance to work 
for wages, and so we have concluded to do the 
next best thing we can do — get our living by our 
labor. This, for me, is something new, and it 
goes rather hard ; but we feel that it is in a good 
cause and so we take it patiently. It is the best 
test that could be made of our fidelity to the cause 
in which we have engaged. Of course we all regret 
our delay, and the alternative it involves, yet no 
one has shrunk from accepting it, viz : Hard labor 

I Above the words, " Lawrence, Kansas," in the original 
letter, is written in lead pencil, " Orange Centre, Ohio," at 
which place Cook in fact was. 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 43 

for the mere })ittance of our food^ till such time 
as we can raise funds enough to take us onward 
to the chosen field of our labor. 

I am witli a farmer by the name of Hayward, in 
this place. I wrote on to Kansas two days ago, to 

I As revealing still more clearly the straitened circum- 
stances of Brown's band after the separation at Chatham, 
Canada West, the following letter from Luke F. Parsons to 
George B. Gill is here printed for the first time : 

Cleveland [Ohio], May 26th, 1858. 
Dear Friend George : 

I have just received your letter for, or directed to, A. 
Stephens. Why did you not direct to me? I came very 

near not opening it I will immediately write to 

Cook, who is at Orange, and not doing anything as yet. He 
intends to get up a writing school, but it is not at all likely 
that he can do so these hard times. Tidd, Whipple and 
Taylor are w^orking among the Shakers for fifty cents a day. 

Taylor told a hard story of suiYering, privations 

and fatigue. He laid out one night with another poor devil 
like himself. While I write Owen [Brown] comes in. He 
is going to leave the place where he is, for the old man [his 
employer] is so cross that they cannot agree. He will take 
" French leave." He thinks of going to his brother's in 
Akron. Have not heard one word from anyone but Moffat. 
He is at home and is going to Lindenville to-day. He talks 

rather blue. I am afraid that we have lost him I 

don't get a d d thing to do yet. To-day I went to the City 

prison, but I don't think I should like to board there. It is 
very necessary that some one stay here to attend to the P. O. 
and to watch for some of the rest. But to-morrow my board 
for one week will be due, and after paying that I shall only 
have money enough to pay one week more. Write soon 

again; tell me all the particulars Keep a stiff 

upper lip. Set your face Zionward. Be sure and write 
immediately. From your Brother, 

L. F. Parsons. 



44 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

see what chance there would be for the sale of 
some of my property there, [Cook, before join- 
ing Brown, had been engaged in the real estate 
business at Lawrence, Kansas, with a man by the 
name of Bacon : the firm name was Cook & 
Bacon.] 

If I can effect a sale we will leave here immedi- 
ately. But I do not wish to give it away or to 
dispose of it for one fourth its value. You can see 
from this that our way, even thus early, is not all 
sunshine. Then there is another cause of delay. 
One of those entrusted with our secret [Forbes] 
has behaved rather treacherously. But to what 
extent his treachery goes, I do not as yet know. 
However, that would not keep us back, even for a 
moment, if we had the means to carry us on to the 
place of our destination. But we live in hopes, 
and are looking for the dawn of a brighter morrow. 
God grant that our waiting may not be long ! 

I am lonely here My thoughts are 

ever going back to the happy hours I have spent 

with my friends in Springdale I came as 

a stranger; I was treated as a friend and brother; 
and in turn you have my undying gratitude and 
affection. The parting hour came ; higher, holier 
duties called me, and I left you — probably for- 
ever 

But I must close these hasty and imperfect 
lines. Please give my love to sisters Phebe, 
Sarah and Agnes. I should have given them a 
share in this letter, only as they do [not] know our 
destination, I did not know as it would be best to 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 45 

inform them yet. You can, however, read this 
page to them, if you hke, as the sentiments it con- 
tains are theirs as well as yours. The rest of it 
I shall expect will be kept a secret from all, save 
those who know our secret. Please write me a 
long letter on receipt of this. I shall expect 
either a long letter from you collectively, or else a 
good one from each one of you. As I do not 
know how long I shall remain here, please direct 
to me in care of E. A. Fobes, Lindenville, Ashta- 
bula County, Ohio. Give my kind regards to 
Fanny Jones, and also to all inquiring friends in 
Springdale. I am stopping at Orange Centre, a 
place about fourteen miles from Cleveland. I 
shall, however, date this, Lawrence, Kansas, for 
reasons which you will readily guess and appreci- 
ate. Esther and Elvira will please read this, and 
then send it as soon as possible to Laura, who in 
turn will send it to Eliza. Accept with these lines 
my best wishes and most fervent prayers for your 
present and eternal welfare, and may God speed 
you in joy upon your way. From him who here 
subscribes himself your brother in affection, 

John Edwin Cook. 

Cook's next letter to his Springdale corre- 
spondents, and the last that I have been able 
to find written before the Harper's Ferry 
affair, bears date, Harper's Ferry, Va., July 
3d, 1858. It is in a rhapsodical strain, to 
which Cook was a good deal inclined, and 
contains nothing of interest. 



46 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

The Story of Brown's raid into Missouri, 
after his return to Kansas, in 1858, is well 
known. Suffice it to say, that on this raid he 
took from their owners a dozen slaves with 
whom, aided by Kagi and Stephens, amid 
great perils he made good his escape into 
Nebraska, and thence to Tabor in Iowa. 
Here, contrary to his expectation and con- 
trary to the whole former attitude of the 
people, he was not welcomed, but, at a public 
meeting called for the purpose, severely rep- 
rimanded as a disturber of the peace and 
safety of the village. Effecting a hasty de- 
parture from Tabor, and taking advantage of 
the protection offered by a few friendly fam- 
ilies on the way, he and his party of fugitives 
came, on February 20th, 1859, to Grinnell, 
Iowa, where they were cordially received by 
the Hon. J. B. Grinnell who entertained 
them in his house. Brown's next stop was 
made at Springdale, which place he reached 
on February 25th. Here the fugitives were dis- 
tributed among the Quaker families for 
safety and rest before continuing their jour- 
ney to Canada. But soon rumors were afloat 
of the coming of the United States Marshal, 
and it became necessary to secure for the 
negroes railroad transportation to Chicago. 
Kagi and Stephens, disguised as sportsmen, 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 47 

walked to Iowa City, enlisted the services of 
Mr. William Penn Clark, an influential anti- 
slavery citizen of that place, and by his efforts, 
supplemented by those of Hon. J. B. Grinnell, 
a freight car was got and held in readiness at 
West Liberty. 

The negroes were then brought down from 
Springdale (distant but six miles) and, after 
spending a night in a grist mill near the rail- 
way station, were ready to embark. It is an 
interesting scene that was beheld by the 
people of West Liberty this March day of 
1859 ^^^ which John Brown was loading his 
car with dusky passengers for Canada and 
Freedom. Huddled together in a little group 
near the track, stand the negroes, patient, 
wondering. Near them, leaning on their 
Sharp's rifles, heavy revolvers in their belts, 
on the alert, stand Kagi and Stephens. In a 
few minutes the freight car which has been 
got with so much trouble, and by not a little 
prevarication as to the use to which it is to be 
put, is pushed by a crowd of men down the 
side-track to a point convenient for the load- 
ing. Brown mounts into it and shakes the 
door and lays hold of the sides that he may 
judge of its capacity for resistance in case of 
attack. Clean straw is then brought to him 
which he spreads over the floor. After this, 



48 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

the negro babes and small children, of whom 
there are several, are handed up to him and 
he tenderly deposits them among the straw. 
The older negroes are next helped in, and all 
is ready. The passenger train on the Chicago 
and Rock Island Road rolls in from the West. 
For a moment there is suspense. Is the 
United States Marshal on board ? No ! The 
train draws out from the station, stops, backs 
down on the side-track and is coupled to the 
freight car. Kagi and Stephens get into one 
of the passenger coaches, and John Brown is 
leaving Iowa for the last time. 

Events rapidly transpired. On reaching 
Chicago, Brown and his party were taken in 
friendly charge by Allan Pinkerton, the 
famous detective, and started for Detroit. 
On March loth, they were in Detroit and 
practically at their journey's end. From 
there Brown went to Peterboro, New York ; 
then to Concord, Massachusetts, where he 
again spoke in the town hall, making a deep 
impression on Henry D. Thoreau ; then to 
Boston, where he arrived on May 9th. He 
left Boston, on June 3d, for Ohio, and, on 
June 30th, was atChambersburg, Pennsylvania. 
On July 3d, he and his two sons, Owen and 
Oliver, were at Harper's Ferry where they 
met Cook. On July 15th, Brown wrote to 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 49 

Edwin and Barclay Coppoc at Springdale, 
requesting that they join him at Chambers- 
burg, Pennsylvania. They required no second 
summons. On July 25th, Barclay said to his 
mother: *'We are going to start for Ohio 
to-day." "Ohio!" said the mother,"! be- 
lieve you are going with old Brown. When 
you get the halters round your necks will you 
think of me?" 

After the departure of Edwin and Barclay 
Coppoc, almost nothing concerning the move- 
ments of John Brown came to the ears of 
anybody in Springdale till October 17th or 
1 8th. Then a thrill of terror shot through 
the community. A telegraphic despatch in 
some newspaper stated that a crazy old man 
and some twenty followers had seized the 
United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Vir- 
ginia, and were holding their assailants, Vir- 
ginia chivalry and United States Marines, at 
bay. On October 20th, C. W. Moffat, who 
by this time had returned to Springdale and 
was there making ready to join Brown, re- 
ceived the following letter from Kagi, written 
the night before the foray : 

We hear that a warrant has been issued to 
search our house here [the house on the Kennedy 
farm] ; so we have got to make the strike eight 
days sooner than the date fixed in our previous 



5© JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

notice to you. Start at once. Study map.^ We 
will try to hold out till you reach us. 

John H. Kagi. 
Secretary of the Constitutional Convention. 

Little by little the details of the affair came 
to light. It was learned that Kagi, Leemaii, 
and Taylor had been shot and killed ; that 
John Brown, Edwin Coppoc, and Stephens 
had been captured ; that Owen Brown, Bar- 
clay Coppoc, Cook, and Tidd had escaped ; 
and that Richard Realf had not been of the 
party making the foray, having gone to Eng- 
land in the summer of 1858,' then to France, 
and was now somewhere in the southern 
States. After a fortnight further news came : 
John E. Cook had been captured. Owen 
Brown, Barclay Coppoc, and Tidd were still 
at liberty. On November 8th or loth, Mrs. 

1 The map referred to was of the public road leading 
from Harper's Ferry to the Kennedy farm. It was fur- 
nished so that Moffat would not have to enquire his way 
to the rendezvous. 

2 On July 28, 1858, Richard Realf had vvriUen to George 
B. Gill as follows: 

Room 10, 16 Wall Street, New York City. 
Dear Bro. George: I have received news from England. 
My mother is very sick. If I can arrange matters, I shall 
run across to see her. If I go, I shall be back in time. 
Indeed I am somewhat fearful that we shall not commence 
before next spring. Truly Your Bro., 

Richard. 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 51 

Ann Coppoc received a letter from her son, 
Edwin. It was dated Charlestown, Va., 
November 5, 1859, and told briefly the fact 
of his capture. It ended with these words : 
" Give my love to Briggs' and Maxons' folks 
and to all other inquiring friends, for [of] 
such I feel that I have a large circle ; and I 
trust that what I have done will not make 
them enemies. My love to all the family. 
No more. Edwin Coppoc." About the same 
time, Dr. H. C. Gill received from Coppoc a 
letter, in which he said : " Whatever may be 
our fate, rest assured that we will not shame 
our dead companions by a shrinking fear." 
After his trial, on December loth, Coppoc 
wrote to Mr. John H. Painter: ''To-day we 
have received a box of knick-knacks from 
Philadelphia, and some of the citizens here 
send us in a pie now and then ; so you may 
know that we live fat, but it is only fattening 
us up for the gallows — rather poor consola- 
tion." Finally, on December 13th, he sent 
these lines to his uncle in Ohio : " I have 
heard my sentence passed ; my doom is 
sealed. But two brief days between me and 
eternity. At the end of these two days I 
shall stand upon the scaffold to take my last 
look at earthly scenes. But that scaffold has 
but little dread for me, for I honestly believe 



52 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

that I am innocent of any crime justifying 
such punishment." 

One farewell message penned by Edwin 
Coppoc is of extraordinary interest. It is in 
these few, yet sufficient, words: "Dear Elza, 
Farewell. Edwin Coppoc." The person to 
whom the message is addressed is one of the 
sons of Mr. William Maxon, but he did not 
know of the message or receive it until Edwin 
Coppoc had been in his grave for more than 
twenty-six years. The facts are these : When 
Coppoc left Springdale to join Brown at 
Harper's Ferry, he took with him an ambro- 
type picture of his friend, Elza Maxon. The 
picture was contained in a small covered case 
from which it could easily be removed. Just 
before his execution, Coppoc took out the pic- 
ture and wrote on the surface of that part of 
the case against which the back of the picture 
rested the Avords above quoted; thinking 
naturally enough that, when his personal 
effects were sent home, the picture would be 
returned to Maxon, and sooner or later the 
message be found. But, as it chanced, Mrs. 
Coppoc never returned the picture and it 
remained in her hands until she died. It 
was then, with some other things deemed 
rubbish, thrown into a corner of the old Cop- 
poc house and forgotten. One day when 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 53 

idly looking, through the house, Maxon came 
upon the case, opened it, found the picture, 
and, impelled by some strange curiosity, 
removed it. The message had come at last. 
But meantime, what of Barclay Coppoc ? 
He got to Springdale on December 17th, after 
a journey of a month through the mountains 
of Maryland and Pennsylvania, the exciting 
particulars of which have been narrated by 
Owen Brown' in a paper printed in the ^Z- 
lantic Monthly for March, 1877. He was 
thin and haggard and nearly exhausted. The 
welcome that met him was warm ; it was tear- 
ful as well. On the day before that on which 
he came, his brother, Edwin, and John E. 
Cook had died upon the scaffold. Nor was 
he safe from pursuit. So spent were his 
powers, however, that his friends at Spring- 
dale resolved to protect him at any cost, and 
banded themselves together in a military or- 
ganization to that end. Nightly guard was 
kept around the Coppoc house, and at a pre- 
concerted signal all were to assemble. Among 

I The death of Owen Brown occurred in 1888, near Pasa- 
dena, California, where he was hving with his brother, 
Jason, and his sister, Ruth. The funeral services were 
conducted by the Quaker preacher of the locality and were 
attended by a great throng. Among the pall-bearers were 
the two staunch friends of John Brown at Springdale, John 
H. Painter and James Townsend, both of whom had re- 
moved to California. 



54 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

those thus enlisted were some who, as on a 
certain famous occasion in Pennsylvania, 
afforded the unusual spectacle of the close 
juxtaposition of a musket and a broad- 
brimmed hat. 

On the 23d of January, i860, one C. Camp, 
as agent of the State of Virginia, appeared in 
Des Moines, Iowa, and served upon Governor 
Samuel J. Kirkwood a requisition for Barclay 
Coppoc. For some reason Camp let his 
errand become generally known, and imme- 
diately steps were taken by the sympathisers 
with Coppoc at Des Moines to advise him of 
his peril. The legislature was in session and 
a sum of money was hastily raised among the 
members. With it a horseman was hired to 
carry to Springdale this message : " Des 
Moines, January 24, i860. Mr. J. H. Painter: 
There is an application for young Coppoc 
from the Governor of Virginia, and the Gov- 
ernor here will be compelled to surrender 
him. If he is in your neighborhood, tell him 
to make his escape from the United States. 
Your Friend." But Coppoc would not go. 
It did not in this instance prove to be neces- 
sary that he should, for the requisition was 
defective in form, and compliance with it was 
refused by Governor Kirkwood on that ac- 
count. Later, on February 4th, a second 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 55 

requisition for Barclay Coppoc was made 
upon Governor Kirkwood, and being in due 
form and accompanied by copies of two in- 
dictments found against Coppoc by the grand 
jury of Jefferson County, Virginia, was 
granted. The necessary papers were put 
into the hands of the sheriff of Cedar County 
to be served ; but that functionary skillfully 
evaded a most ungrateful and dangerous task 
by going to Springdale and loudly enquiring 
of everybody whom he met for Barclay Cop- 
poc. He did not find him and made official 
return that he was not to be found within the 
limits of Cedar County. 

It was now thought best for Coppoc to go 
to Canada and remain there until the public 
mind should quiet down. To do this he re- 
luctantly consented, and in disguise and ac- 
companied by a son of Mr. Maxon, he went 
to Detroit, and from there into Canada. But 
hearing that Owen Brown, John Brown, Jr., 
F. J. Merriam, of Massachusetts, and James 
Redpath were in Ashtabula county, Ohio, he 
went thither, still accompanied by Maxon, 
and there, at the little town of Dorset, the six 
men stayed for three weeks, always heavily 
armed and never separated. They were at this 
place on March i6, i860, the day on which 
Aaron D. Stephens was hanged. In 1861 



56 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

Barclay Coppoc enlisted in the Union army 
and was killed in a railroad wreck at a cross- 
ing of the Platte river ; the wreck was caused 
by the Confederates having partially sawed in 
two the supports to the bridge. 

None of John Brown's band, even in the 
hour of his extremity, forgot Springdale or 
the friends there made. John E. Cook wrote 
to Mr. and Mrs. James Townsend on Decem- 
ber 15, 1859 : "We struck a blow for the free- 
dom of the slave. We failed, and those who 
are not already dead must die, and that upon 
the scaffold. Accept my love, my God-speed, 
and my last farewell." A fortnight earlier 
Aaron D. Stephens had written as follows to 
Mrs. Varney : "I feel perfectly guiltless of 
the charges brought against me. I have done 
nothing but what I think is right and just." 
As for Brown himself, he told Stephens to say 
for him that he wished to be remembered by 
all the kind friends at Springdale. "And," 
adds Stephens, "although his end is drawing 
nigh, he is as cheerful as if he were in your 
midst." 

NOTE. 

Among the answers made by Richard Realf in his exami- 
nation before Senator Mason's committee are the following: 
" I formed the acquaintance of John Brown the last of No- 
vember or the first of December [1857]. I was residing in 
the city of Lawrence, Kansas, as correspondent of the 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS, 57 

Illinois Slate Journal, edited by Messrs. Bailhache & Baker. 
I had been and was a radical abolitionist. In November, 
1857, John Edwin Cook, recently executed in Virginia, came 
to my boarding house in Lawrence, bringing me an invita- 
tion from John Brown to visit him at a place called Tabor, 
in Iowa. There I met John Brown. John Brown made 
known to me to a certain, but not very definite and detailed, 
degree his intentions. He stated that he purposed to make 
an incursion into the Southern States, somewhere in the 
mountainous region of the Blue Ridge and theAlleghanies. 
From Tabor, where I myself first met John Brown and the 
majority of the persons forming the white part of his com- 
pany in Virginia, we passed across the State of Iowa, until 
we reached Cedar county in that State. We started in De- 
cember, 1857. It was about the end of December, 1857,01 
the beginning of January, 1858, when we reached Cedar 
county, the journey thus consuming about a month of time. 
We stopped at a village called Springdale in that county, 
where, in a settlement principally composed of Quakers, we 
remained. Myself, Mr. Kagi, Mr. Cook, Mr. Stephens, 
Mr. Tidd, Mr. Leeman, Mr. Moffat, Mr. Parsons, and Mr. 
Owen Brown, all these being whites, and Mr. Richard 
Richardson, a colored man whom I met with Brown at 
Tabor, composed our company. We remained at Spring- 
dale from the month — whether it be, I cannot now remem- 
ber, the latter part of December, 1857, or the beginning of 
January, 1858, — ^but from that time up until about the last 
week in April — a period of nearly three [four] months. 
We were being drilled a part of the time and receiving mili- 
tary lessons under Mr. Stephens. A part of the time I was 
lecturing. Brown provided for the support of the company 
whilst we were there in this way: upon reaching there he, 
finding himself unable to dispose of the mules and wagons 
with which he transported us across the State, and unable 
to get the price he desired for them, left us there to board, 
the property named to belong to the man who kept us, a 
price having been agreed upon between himself and Mr. 
Brown. We boarded with a Mr. Maxon. During our pas- 
sage across Iowa Brown's plan in regard to an incursion 



58 JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 

into Virginia gradually manifested itself. It was a matter 
of discussion between us as to the possibility of effecting a 
successful insurrection in the mountains, some arguing that 
it was, some that it was not; myself thinking and still think- 
ing that a mountainous country is a very fine country for an 
insurrection, in which I am borne out by historic evidence 
which it is not necessary to state now. Brown expected to 
make his incursion into Virginia in the spring of 1858. We 
expected Colonel Forbes to be our military instructor, yet 
in consequence of a disagreement between himself and John 
Brown , the latter wrote us from the East that Forbes would 
not become our military instructor and that we should not 
expect him, I am inclined to think that the people [of 
Springdale] knew nothing at all of our movements, for the 
reason that by some we were suspected to be Mormon mis- 
sionaries. I believe that John Brown had given a man 
named Townsend, I cannot remember his first name, a 
member of the Society of Friends, some indirect and indefi- 
nite hints of his plan. I also think that from the nature of 
a conversation which a Mr. Varney (also residing in the 
immediate neighborhood, and being also a Quaker,) had 
with myself, someone must have given him some hints in 
regard to the same matter; but neither of these people 
were evidently, from the tone of their conversation, pos- 
sessed of any definite information in regard to the matter. 
Our military training was conducted principally behind the 
house of Mr. Maxon, it being generally understood in the 
place where we were boarding, in the vicinity, and round 
about that we were thus studying tactics and being thus 
drilled in order to return to Kansas, to prosecute our en- 
deavors to make Kansas a free State. We had our private 
arms. John E. Cook had his own private arms. I had 
my pair of Colt's revolvers. Brown did not, to my knowl- 
edge, furnish any of his company with arms. I met the 
people composing this company at Tabor. All of them had 
been engaged in Kansas warfare. Ever>'body at that period 
in Kansas went armed. All of the company whom I have 
named as having gone to Springdale accompanied Brown 
to Chatham, and two others, a young man named George 



JOHN BROWN AMONG THE QUAKERS. 59 

B. Gill, who resided at Springdale, who had learned of our 
plans, from whom I do not know, but I suppose from John 
Brown, inasmuch as he never manifested any desire to ac- 
company us anywhere until the return of John Brown; and 
another young man named Stewart [Steward] Taylor, the 
latter of whom was killed at Harper's Ferry, and the former 
of whom, so far as I have been able to learn, was not present 
at the incursion. 



MASCOUTIN 



MASCOUTIN. 

A REMINISCENCE OF THE NATION OF FIRE. 

Mascoutin (or Muscatine, as the spelling and 
pronunciation now are,) is the one town of this 
name in the United States of America. It is 
situated in the state of Iowa, on the Missis- 
sippi river, at the vertex of the great bend into 
the state which a glance at the map will show 
that the river makes. High and picturesque 
bluffs overhang the river, and on these the 
town of Muscatine is built. Southwest of the 
town is a low, flat, sandy tract containing 
nearly forty thousand acres — an island by 
natural formation, being separated from the 
Illinois shore on the east by the river, and 
from the Iowa shore on the west by a narrow, 
winding slough. The name of this island is 
also Muscatine ; and it is worthy of remark 
that it bore this name long before the town 
of Muscatine was founded, and indeed from 
a period altogether remote and indeterminate. 
The derivation of this name Mascoutin, 
or Muscatine, has ever been a question of 
interest for local antiquarians. That it is 
Indian nobody has doubted ; but with re- 

63 



64 MASCOUTIN. 

gard to its meaning and with regard to the 
tribe or band who first applied it to the island 
under consideration, opinions have differed. 
In 1852 the editor of one of the daily papers 
printed in Muscatine wrote to Antoinele Claire, 
at Davenport, Iowa, for a definition of the word 
Muscatine. Le Claire was of French-Indian 
extraction, and in pioneer days had been the 
official interpreter for the United States gov- 
ernment in its dealings with the Indians of 
eastern Iowa, chiefly the Sac and Fox tribes ; 
he therefore was deemed competent to define 
this word. His reply to the question asked 
was that Muscatine *' is a sort of combination 
of an Indian and French word : mus-quo-ta, 
the Indian word, means ' prairie'; the French 
added the termination tine to mus-quo-ta, 
and the compound word musquo, or musqui- 
tine, means * little prairie.' The Indian word 
menis means ' island,' ashcota means ' fire,' 
musquaw means 'red.' The Indians used to 
call the island Mus-quo-ta-menis, which means 
' prairie island.'" 

Le Claire's definition never has been 
entirely satisfactory to Muscatine antiquari- 
ans. They have objected to it on poetic 
grounds among others. For years after, as 
doubtless during an untold period before, the 
town of Muscatine was founded, (1839) 



MASCOUTIN. 65 

immense fires would sweep over Muscatine 
island in the autumn, denuding it of the tall 
grass — grass as tall as a mounted man — with 
which its soil was covered. " Now, what 
more fitting," these antiquarians have con- 
tended, *'than that the name Muscatine 
should signify burning or fire island? What 
more likely, furthermore, than that the 
Indians, impressed with the magnificent and 
terrible spectacle of the writhing, sweeping 
flames, should call the spot, where these 
flames were as regularly recurrent as the 
seasons, by some name significant of 
them? Finally, in addition to all else," say 
the antiquarians, *' Antoine le Claire himself, 
although defining the word Musquotamenis 
as prairie island, states the meaning of the 
Indian word ashcota to be fire, and the mean- 
ing of the word musquaw to be * red.' A 
philological support is therefore suggested 
even by Le Claire for the argument we make 
in favor of the meaning, burning or fire 
island/' One can but be impressed with the 
force of the reasoning. 

But there is a way by which more nearly to 
reach a solution of this problem of the mean- 
ing of the word Mascoutin, or Muscatine ; and 
not only so, but of the no less difficult pro- 
blem : What tribe or band of Indians origin- 



66 MASCOUTIN. 

ally gave this name to the island. In the 
year 1669, Father Claude AUouez, a Jesuit 
priest, came to Green Bay, in what is now the 
state of Wisconsin, for the purpose of estab- 
lishing a mission. While there he ascended 
the Fox river, passing through the territory 
occupied by the Sacs and Foxes, and came at 
length to an Indian town at the west of Lake 
Winnebago, containing a population of some 
three thousand souls. This town was Mas- 
coutin (aboriginal Muscatine), or the village 
of the Mascoutins — a distinct Indian tribe. 
It was situated, we are told, " on the crown of 
a hill ; while, all around, the prairie stretched 
beyond the sight, interspersed with groves 
and belts of tall forest." Moreover, it was a 
palisaded town ; that is to say, a town en- 
circled by a row of posts set close together in 
the ground, against which, on the inner side, 
heavy sheets of bark had been fastened. As 
early as 16 15 the tribe of the Mascoutins were 
inhabitants of the country west and southwest 
of Lake Huron, now southern Michigan, 
where they had some thirty towns. But from 
this region they were driven in 1642 or 1643 
by the Neutral Nation, so called, their im- 
mediate neighbors on the east, and thereafter 
were to be found in the Fox river region. 
" Last summer," says the Relation des Hurons 



MASCOUTIN. 67 

of 1643, in allusion to the expulsion of the 
Mascoutins from the Lake Fluron country, 
" two thousand warriors of the Neutral Nation 
attacked a town of the Nation of Fire, well 
fortified with a palisade, and defended by- 
nine hundred warriors. They took it after a 
siege of ten days ; killed many on the spot, 
and made eight hundred prisoners, men, 
women, and children. Afterburning seventy 
of the best warriors, they put out the eyes of 
the old men, and cut away their lips, and then 
left them to drag out a miserable existence." 
The village of the Mascoutins on Fox river 
(aboriginal Muscatine) was, it may also be 
remarked, a point of note and importance. 
Hither, at one time, came Jean Nicolet, and 
here he learned from the Mascoutins of the 
existence of the "great water," the Mississippi. 
Hither also, in 1659, came the travelers 
Radisson and Groseilliers ; and concerning 
the Mascoutins Radisson wrote in his journal: 
" We made acquaintance with another nation 
called Escotecke (Mascoutins), wch signified 
fire, a faire, proper nation ; they weare tall, and 
big, and very strong. We came there in the 
spring. When we arrived there were extra- 
ordinary banquets. There they never had 
seen men wth beards, because they pull their 
haires as soone as it comes out ; but much 



68 MASCOUTIN. 

more astonished when they saw our arms, 
especially our guns, wch they worshipped 
by blowing smoke of tobacco instead of 
sacrifice." 

Further on, and at a later date, Radisson 
gives an account of an expedition made by 
himself and his companion to and down a 
stream which it seems safe to infer was the 
Mississippi. His exact words are : " We 
weare 4 moneths in our voyage wthout doe- 
ing anything but goe from river to river. 

We mett several sorts of people By 

the persuasion of rome of them we went into 

ye great river that divides itself in 2 

It is so called because it has two branches, 
the one towards the west, the other towards 
the south, wch we believe runns towards 
Mexico, by the tokens they gave us." The 
" branch " spoken of by Radisson as "towards 
the west" is conjectured by the editor of 
Radisson's journal, as published in the Wis- 
consin Historical Collection, to be the upper 
Iowa river. If so, Radisson and Groseilliers 
at least journeyed well down towards the site 
of the present town of Muscatine — and this, 
moreover, as a direct result of information 
derived from the Mascoutin Indians. 

Now it will be observed — coming to one of 
the main points of our investigation — that the 



MASCOUTIN. 69 

name Mascoutin, as applied to the Indian 
tribe of which I have been speaking, is de- 
fined by the Relation des Hurojis of 1643, and 
by Radisson's journal of 1656 2i% fire nation. 
To this it may be added that the map of La 
Salle's colony, finished in 1684 by Jean Bap- 
tiste Franquelin, fixes the location of the 
Mascoutins as on Fox river, and at the same 
time designates them as Mascoutins, Nation 
du Feu. But Charlevoix says that the true 
name of the Mascoutins was Mascoutenec, 
signifying an open country. He explains the 
name Mascoutin as a mispronunciation of 
Mascoutenec by the Pottawattomies, which 
was taken up and perpetuated by the French. 
But that there was a word Mascoutin, or 
something very like it, which, in the Potta- 
wattomie tongue, meant fire, Charlevoix admits. 
So here arises again the old dispute. On 
the one side, contending for the meaning fire 
nation, we have the early discoverers Radis- 
son, Allouez, Marquette' and La Salle, to- 

^Jes.Rel. 1670-71. Marquette: "We entered into the 
river which leads to the Machkoutenech (Mascoutins), 
called Fire Nation. This is a very beautiful river, without 
rapids or portages ; it flows to the southwest. Along this 
river are numerous nations: Oumami (Miami), Kikabou 
(Kickapoo) , Machkouteng (Mascoutins) , &c. These peo]5le 
are established in a very fine place, where we see beautiful 
plains, and level country as far as the eye reaches. Their 
river leads into a great river called Mississippi." 



70 MASCOUTIN. 

gether with Sagard and Champlain ; while on 
the other we are confronted by Dablon,^ 
Charlevoix, Schoolcraft, and (doubtfully) 
Parkman.^ And what, by a sort of amusing 
perversity, is more perplexing still, the name 
Mascoutin, as applied to the island in the 
Mississippi below the present town of Musca- 
tine, is equally pertinent and apropos, be the 
meaning thereof fire island or prairie island ; 
for, besides being the flattest and nakedest of 
prairies, in Indian times this island was wont 
to be swept yearly by fierce conflagrations. 

But what connection is there (coming now 
to the other leading point of our investigation) 
between the Mascoutin tribe of Indians on 
Fox river in what is now the state of Wiscon- 
sin, and Mascoutin, or Muscatine, island in 
the state of Iowa ? How is it even known 
that Muscatine island originally was Mas- 
coutin island ? Answering the last question 

^Dablon: "It is beyond this great river that are placed 
the Illinois, of whom we speak, and from whom are de- 
tached those who dwell here with the Fire Nation — Mas- 
coutins. The Fire Nation bears this name erroneously (?) 
calling themselves Machkoutenech, which signifies * a land 
bare of trees' (Muscutah — prairie), such as that which this 
people inhabit ; but because by the change of a few letters 
(namely scuta, which means fire) from thence it has come 
that they are called the Fire Nation," 

■^Wisconsin. Historical Collection, vol. iii. pp. 131-132. 
Parkman's Jcs. in North America, p. 436, note. 



MASCOUTIN. 71 

first, let me quote from the diary of Major 
Thomas Forsyth of the United States Army, 
kept by him in the year 1819 while on a 
voyage up the Mississippi from St. Louis to 
the Falls of St. Anthony : "Sunday, June 20th. 
Weather still very warm ; had the sail up and 
down several times. Met the Black Thunder 
and some followers, all Foxes, going down to 
St. Louis in their canoes ; they immediately 
returned when they met me. Encamped a 
little above the Iowa river ; eighteen miles 
was this day's progress. Monday, 21st. We 
were off by time this morning ; three Saukies 
overtook us on their way from hunting, bound 
up to their village on Rocky river ; current 
strong to-day, made only twenty-four miles ; 
encamped at upper end of Grand Mascoutin." 
On the day following he reached Fort Arm- 
strong on Rock Island, having come, he tells 
us, " twenty-seven miles from his last stop." 
Now the distance from the mouth of the Iowa 
river to the head of Muscatine Island is, by 
river, at least twenty miles — about what Major 
Forsyth guessed to be the distance from his 
place of encampment " a little above the Iowa 
river" to "the upper end of Grand Mascoutin "; 
and the distance from Muscatine Island to 
Rock Island is by river twentv-eight miles — 
just one mile more than Major Forsyth 



72 MASCOUTIN. 

guessed it to be. It therefore seems plain 
that Muscatine Island was known by the name 
Mascoutin in and before the year 1819. 

In answer to the first question — that regard- 
insr the connection between the Mascoutin 
Indians and Mascoutin Island — the following 
may be said : The Sac and Fox (or more cor- 
rectly, the Sauk and Musquakie) Indians, as 
is well known, had inhabited what is now 
eastern Iowa and western Illinois, near the 
mouth of Rock river, for seventy or one 
hundred years before the Black Hawk war of 
1831-32. It also is known that early in the 
eighteenth century the Sac and Fox tribes 
were denizens of the Fox river region, where 
were also at that time the Mascoutins. From 
this region the Sacs and Foxes had migrated 
to the Rock river region. Is it probable that 
the Mascoutins, or some of the Mascoutins, 
migrated with them ? It seem to me that it 
is. To begin with, the accomplished Indian 
historian John Gilmary Shea makes the sug- 
gestion that the name Musquakie, by which 
the Fox Indians called themselves, means red 
land, and may be a corruption of Mash- 
kooteaki — fire land. If so, Shea thinks that 
the Foxes comprised the remnant, and bore 
the name, of the Mascoutins. That the Foxes, 
or Sacs and Foxes, by the time of their migra- 



MASCOUTIN. 73 

tion to the Rock river region, had absorbed 
the Mascoutins— not then a numerous people 
— is, I think, highly probable. That they 
comprised them — were in fact the remnant of 
them, seems to me highly improbable. The 
Foxes were a distinct tribe and had borne the 
name of Musquakie long prior to their hegira 
southward. But they readily could have 
absorbed the Mascoutins : for, first, they were 
more numerous ; second, they spoke the same 
tongue'; third, they always had had the Mas- 
coutins for close neighbors and allies-; and 
fourth, the Mascoutins dropped entirely out 
of history in the early part of the eighteenth 
century.3 Assuming, then, that some of the 
Mascoutin tribe accompanied the Sacs and 
Foxes to the mouth of the Rock river, they 
would have been within twenty-eight miles 
of the island called Grand Mascoutin in 1819 
by Major Forsyth, and today called Musca- 
tine by everybody. That this island, so near 

iParkman's Jes. i?i North Am. p. 436, note. 

2 Memoir concerning the peace made by Monsieur de 
Lignery with the chiefs of the Foxes, etc., June 7, 1726. 
Wis. Hist. Col., vol. iii. p. 149. 

sParkman's Jes. iti North Am. p. 436, note. Shea says 
that the Mascoutins disappeared from the Fox river region 
about 1720. Wis. Hist. Col., vol. iii. p. 131; see also Wis. 
Col., vol. iii. p. 106. Parkman says in his La Salle, p. 36, 
"The Mascoutins, Fire Nation, or Nation of the Prairie, 
are extinct or merged in other tribes." 



74 MASCOUTIN. 

to the new abiding place of the Mascoutins, 
should in some way, by more or less perma- 
nent occupation perhaps, have derived its 
name from them is a reasonable supposition. 
But whether Mascoutin mean fire nation or 
prairie nation, it is now impossible absolutely 
to determine. A feather's weight is thrown 
into the balances in favor of the meaning fire 
nation or fire land by Shea's statement that 
Mashkooteaki means fire land ; for it will be 
remembered that Radisson in his journal gives 
the name Mascoutin as Escotecke — a not un- 
successful phonetic reproduction of Mash- 
kooteaki.^ 

The spot on Iowa soil now occupied by 
Muscatine is not, it may fittingly be remarked 
in conclusion, without other historic associa- 
tions than such as arise from the probable 
connection with it of some remnant of the 
Mascoutin tribe. 

I The following is suggested as the possible derivation of 
the word Mascoutin: (i) Escotecke (Radisson) or Mash- 
kooteaki (Shea) or Mashkootenki (Allouez and Marquette, 
by prefixing M, and afifixing oik, to the word skoote or ash- 
koote; this word meaning, by definition of all, fire land or 
fire nation); (2) Mashcouteng {Jcs. Rcl. iGbg-jo); (3) 
Machkoutens {Jes. Rel. 1670-1); (4) Maskoutens or Mas- 
coutins (Charlevoix). The meaning " prairie nation," to 
which later writers have inclined, is obtained, according to 
Shea, by deriving the word Mascoutin from Muskortenec or 
Muscutah — " prairie." 



MASCOUTIN. 75 

Here was the favorite hunting-ground of 
the great Sac chief Makataimishekiakiak, or 
Black (sparrow) Hawk. Here, doubtless, on 
many occasions has he stood upon the com- 
manding heights overlooking Mascoutin 
island and the Mississippi river, and gazed 
with awe upon the magnificent and extended 
prospect; for Black Hawk was an admirer of 
bold scenery, as he has been careful to tell us 
in his Autobiography when describing the 
position of and view from Black Hawk's 
Watch Tower on Rock river. Here also the 
eloquent and wily Sac chief Keokuk used 
to hunt and dwell ; the name Keokuk lake 
still serving to designate an extension 
at one point of the waters of Muscatine 
slough. At Muscatine island lieutenant 
Zebulon M. Pike, from whom was afterwards 
named Pike's Peak, Colorado, stopped on 
his voyage of exploration up the " great 
water"* in 1805. Up past Muscatine island 
sailed the expedition sent out in 1814 by 
Governor William Clark of Missouri to seize 
and fortify Prairie du Chien. Down past this 
island, likewise in 1814, swept the disabled 
boats of Lieutenants Rector and Riggs, after 
the bloody repulse at Rock island (by the 
Indians under Black Hawk) of Captain John 
iMissi, Algonquin for great; sepe, Algonquin for water. 



76 MASCOUTIN. 

Campbell's expedition for the relief of the 
post at Prairie du Chien — then beleagured by 
the British. Down past this island the next 
year came in retreat, but not in disorder,, the 
large boats in which Major Zachary Taylor 
had in vain, after some fierce cannonading, 
attempted to dislodge the British and Indians 
from their Rock Island stronghold. And 
finally, in 1816, up past Muscatine island and 
the future site of Muscatine, sailed General 
Thomas A. Smith of the iVmerican army, on 
his way to establish the military and trading 
post Fort Armstrong on the lower end of 
Rock Island, and the similar post, Fort Snell- 
ing, near the Falls of St. Anthony. No scene 
of blood, so far as known, ever has been 
enacted on the immediate spot where Mus- 
catine stands. The most thrilling picture 
possible for the imagination to paint, in 
intimate connection with it, is that of a 
billowy mass of flames sweeping for miles the 
surface of a low, level island and bringing 
into sharp relief against the sky the form of 
some Indian watcher upon the lonely hills. 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK 



r 



BLACK HAWK, KEOKUK, AND THEIR 
VILLAGE. 

The western boundary of the state of Illinois 
is formed by the Mississippi river. The 
course of this river past the city of Rock 
Island, and for many miles above, is southwest. 
Just below the city Rock river enters the Mis- 
sissippi. The course of Rock river is also 
southwest, but at such an angle as to bring it 
into conjunction with the larger stream at the 
point named. In the Mississippi, three and 
one-half miles northeast from the mouth of 
Rock river, is the island of Rock Island — at 
present the site of the extensive United States 
government works known as the Rock Island 
Arsenal. On the north bank of Rock river, 
a mile east from its mouth, was located for 
many years (perhaps a hundred) preceding 
its destruction in 1831 by the Illinois militia, 
the large Indian town of Saukenuk. The 
date of the founding of this town is undeter- 
mined. Black Hawk, the Sauk chief, in his 
autobiography, puts it as far back as 1731. 
Others put it as late as 1783 — the ap- 
proximate date of the abandonment by the 

79 



8o BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

Sauks of their village on the Wisconsin river, 
which Augustin Grignon found deserted in 
1795, but which Jonathan Carver, the English 
traveler, had found inhabited in 1766. 

The founders of the town— the Sauk In- 
dians — were an Algonquin tribe, inhabitants 
originally, along with other tribes, of the re- 
gion about Montreal, Canada; extremely 
warlike in disposition, and possessing a his- 
tory abounding in incidents both romantic 
and terrible. As early as 1720, according to 
Charlevoix, the pioneer historian of New 
France, they occupied the territory bordering 
upon Green Bay in what is now the State of 
Wisconsin ; their village being on the Fox 
river thirty-seven miles above the bay, at the 
place afterwards called the little Butte des 
Morts. Here, it was one of their practices to 
demand tribute from the Indian traders as 
the latter passed up the Fox river on their 
way to the Wisconsin portage ; pillaging, mal- 
treating, and even killing any who should 
make bold to deny them. Enraged at this, a 
daring French trader and captain, LaPerriere 
Marin by name, resolved to put a stop to it. 
Waiting till the ice was sufficiently out of Fox 
river, in the spring of 1730, to permit the pas- 
sage of boats, Capt. Marin ascended the stream 
with eight or ten Mackinaw craft filled with 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 8 1 

soldiers and Menomonee Indian allies. When 
within a mile of the Sauk village, he landed 
his boats, disembarked the Menomonees and 
half of his soldiers, and ordered them to gain 
the rear of the Sauks. The remainder of the 
party disposed themselves in the bottom of a 
few of the boats, beneath the canvas covers 
with which it was customary to protect the 
lading from the weather, and the expedition 
proceeded. As the boats came opposite the 
village, only Marin and the usual number of 
voyageurs were in sight. The shore was 
crowded with the dusky forms of the Indian 
warriors, women and children, who had gath- 
ered to receive the anticipated gift of goods 
and whiskey. Nothing could have been less 
sinister than the aspect of the boats. On 
they came, the clear tones of the voyageurs 
rising in the familiar boat song: 
" Tous les printemps, 

Tant de nouvelles, 

Tons les ama7its 

Changent de mattresses. 

Le bon vin in' eiidort ; 

L amour 7iie reveille'''^ 

I " Each returning springtime 
Brings so much that's new, 
All the fickle lovers 
Changing sweethearts, too. 
, The good wine soothes and gives me rest, 
While Ipye iijspires and fills my breast." 



82 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

"Skootay wawbo ! Skootay wawbo !" [fire wa- 
ter] yelled the Indians. " Fire !" cried Marin ; 
and immediately the canvas coverings were 
thrown aside and the Indians smitten by a vol- 
ley from more than a hundred rifles. Hear- 
ing the attack in front, the party which had 
been sent to cut off flight to the rear also at- 
tacked, and in a very short time the entire 
population of the village was destroyed, and 
the village itself reduced to ashes.' The 
mound afterwards raised above those who 
perished in the fight became known by the 
Anglo-French designation of the little Butte 
lies Morts. 

Prostrated by this and other disasters in- 
flicted on their nation by the French,^ the 

» For the details of the above account of Marin's expedi- 
tion the writer is indebted to a chapter from the " Tales of 
the Northwest,'" by Wilham J. SneUing, Boston, 1830. 

2 The French war with the Sauk and Fox tribes was one 
of long duration. As early as 1716, the Sieur de Louvigny 
moved against them in their stronghold near Green Bay 
(Wis.) and forced them to sue for peace. In 1728, trouble 
again arose, and the Sieur de Lignery headed an expedi- 
tion to Green Bay and up Fox river, which was rendered 
fruitless by the retreat of the Indians into the distant 
country of the lowas. In the fall of 1729, a party of 
Ottawas, Chippeways, Menomonees, and Winnebagos 
(allies of the French) surprised the Foxes returning from a 
buffalo hunt, and killed eighty men and three hundred 
women and children. Next came Marin's expedition in 
March, 1730. In September, 1730, the Sieur [de ViUiers 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 8^ 

Sauks — what there were left of them — sought 
out a new place of abode. They established 
a village on the present site of the twin vil- 
lages, Prairie du Sac and Sauk City, on the 
Wisconsin river; their allies, the Foxes, who 
had suffered expulsion from the Green Bay 
country along with them, establishing them- 
selves at Prairie du Chien. Writing concern- 
ing the Fox village at the Prairie, as it ap- 
peared in 1766, Jonathan Carver says : 

" It is a large town and contains about three 
hundred families. The houses are well built, 
after the Indian manner, and pleasantly situated 
on a very rich soil from which they [the inhabit- 
ants] raise every necessary of life in great abun- 
dance. This town is the great mart, where all 
the adjacent tribes, and even those who inhabit 
the most remote branches of the Mississippi, an- 
nually assemble, about the latter end of May, 
bringing w'ith them their furs to dispose of to the 
traders." 

The town of Saukenuk was a much larger 
and much more important centre of Indian 
population than was Prairie du Chien. Its 

defeated the Sauks and Foxes, killing two hundred warriors 
and six hundred women and children. 1746 is the date 
assigned by tradition for the final expulsion of the Sauks 
and Foxes from Wisconsin. But Carver distinctly bears 
testimony that both the Sauk and Fox tribes were inhabit- 
ing the country near the mouth of the Wisconsin river as 
late as 1766. 



84 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

site was one of the most beautiful in the Mis- 
sissippi valley. Northwest of it was the Mis- 
sissippi, dotted with islands, foremost among 
which was Rock Island, abounding in fruits 
and birds, and presided over by a local divin- 
ity dwelling in a great cave at its northwest 
extremity. Immediately south and at one 
side of the town ran Rock river, a less impos- 
ing stream than the Father of Waters, but of 
silvery clearness, and broken by rippling shal- 
lows and gentle falls — a stream making always 
a pleasant noise in the ears of the dusky wan- 
derers along its banks. 

The general configuration of the town of 
Saukenuk was that of a right-angled triangle 
of unequal sides ; the shorter side lying paral- 
lel with Rock river and extending down the 
river from the vertex of the right angle ; the 
longer side extending north towards the 
Mississippi. It was defended by a brush pali- 
sade with gates for entrance. The lodges of 
the Indians were rectangular houses, from 
thirty to one hundred feet in length and from 
sixteen to forty feet in width. They were 
made by placing a covering or sheeting of 
elm bark over a framework of poles, the bark 
being fastened to the poles by buckskin 
thongs. A doorway, three feet in width, by 
six in height, was left in the two ends of each 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 85 

lodge before which was usually suspended a 
skin of the buffalo. The interior was broken 
into compartments on either side of a hallway 
extending from end to end of the structure. 
At intervals, down the middle of this hallway, 
were fire pits, provision being made for the 
escape of the smoke from the fires by open- 
ings left in the roof directly over the pits. 
The compartments were used as sleeping 
rooms, the couch consisting of skins thrown 
over an elevated framework of elastic poles." 
In nearly every detail of construction, these 
lodges of the Sauks at Saukenuk seem to have 
closely resembled those of the Hurons in 
Canada, which were swept out of existence over 
two hundred years ago, and our knowledge of 
which is only derived from the worm-eaten 
pages of the Jesuit Relations.^ 

Aside from warring with the Sioux, the 
chief occupation of the Sauks was agriculture. 
They cultivated some eight hundred acres of 

» This description of Saukenuk is from the orally im- 
parted recollections of Bailey Davenport, Esq., a son of 
Col. George Davenport. Mr. Bailey Davenport spent 
much of his childhood among the Indians at their village 
on Rock river. Col. George Davenport himself was an In- 
dian trader residing on Rock Island. The son was born in 
September, 1823, and died in January, 1891. 

^Parkman in '' The Jesuits in North America" (Intro- 
duction, pp. xxvi and .\xvii), describes particularly the 
lodges of the Hurons, 



86 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

the land adjacent to their village, raising 
good crops of corn, beans, and pump- 
kins. For an Indian town, the population 
of Saukenuk was very large. Governor Ford, 
in his history of Illinois, estimates it at 
six or seven thousand persons. Other esti- 
mates put it at not less than ten thousand per- 
sons. Major Thomas Forsyth, of the United 
States army, wrote to Governor Clark, of 
Missouri, in 1817 : ''Indeed I have seen many 
Indian villages, but I never saw such a large 
one or such a populous one. They (the 
Sauks) appear stationary there, and their old 
lodges are repaired, and some new ones built 
and others building." Here, in this savage 
London or Paris, was the centre of the Sauk 
national life, of its gaieties and of its serious 
deliberations. 

On the level ground west of the town fre- 
quently might have been seen, in the early 
summer time and autumn, hundreds of brawny 
Indians engaged in their favorite sports of 
horse racing and ball playing. In either case 
the play was for stakes, and these ahvays high 
— two or three horses, a fine rifle or war club. 
Their game of ball, which Black Hawk men- 
tions as very popular, was played in this wise : 
A tall post was erected at either extremity of 
the play ground, and the players divided into 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 87 

rival parties. The object of each was to de- 
fend its own post and drive the ball to that 
of its adversary. ** Hundreds of lithe and 
agile figures," says Parknian, describing this 
game as played by the Sauks and Ojibways 
near Michillimackinac in June, 1763, "are 
leaping and bounding upon the plain ; each 
is nearly naked, his loose black hair flying in 
the wind; and each bears in his hand a bat 
of a form peculiar to this game. At one 
moment the whole are crowded together, a 
dense throng of combatants, all struggling 
for the ball ; at the next they are scattered 
again, and running over the ground like 
hounds in full cry; each in his excitement 
yells and shouts at the height of his voice. 
Rushing and striking, tripping their adversa- 
ries or hurling them to the ground, they pur- 
sue the animating contest." Or, if our at- 
tention be directed to the town itself on the 
proper occasion, we may behold the great 
national dance of the Sauks. The large open 
square with which the town is provided is 
swept clean. The chiefs and old warriors take 
seats on mats which have been spread on the 
upper end of the square. Next come the 
drummers and singers; the braves and wo- 
men gather on the sides. The drums beat 
and the singing commences. A warrior en- 



88 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

ters the square, keeping time to the music. 
He describes the way in which a war party 
was formed, the enemy approached, the toma- 
hawk buried in the brain of a victim, or his 
scalp torn from his head. The women loudly 
applaud, while the young men who have never 
killed any enemy stand back ashamed. An- 
other warrior then steps forward and recounts 
his exploits, until all have done so, and a veri- 
table frenzy of excitement seizes upon the 
assembly. 

At a distance of half a mile east of the site 
of the Indian town rises the bold promontory 
known as Black Hawk's Watch-Tower. Rock 
river flows at its base, — two hundred sheer 
feet from the apex in which the promontory 
culminates. Of this place Black Hawk him- 
self says in his autobiography: "This tower, 
to which my name has been applied, was a 
favorite resort, and was frequently visited by 
me alone, where I could sit and smoke my 
pipe and look with wonder and pleasure at 
the grand scenes that were presented by the 
sun's rays even across the mighty water [the 
Mississippi]. On one occasion a Frenchman, 
who had been making his home in our village, 
brouorht his violin with him to the tower to 
play and dance for the amusement of our 
people who had assembled there, and while 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 89 

dancing with his back to the cliff, accident- 
ally fell over and was killed by the fall. The 
Indians say that always, at the same time of 
the year, soft strains of the violin can be heard 
near the spot." 

The two most remarkable individuals (and 
they were truly remarkable) at any time born 
in Saukenuk were Black Hawk and Keokuk, 
both war chiefs of the Sauks. The date of 
the birth of Black Hawk or, as the name is in 
the Sauk tongue, Makataimeshekiakiak, is 
given in the autobiography as 1767. If this 
date be accepted, the conclusion is inevitable 
that the Sauks must have removed from the 
Wisconsin to the Rock river region immedi- 
ately after the visit to them of Carver in 1766. 
But there are those who, governed by state- 
ments made by Black Hawk some years after 
the publication of his autobiography, fix the 
date of his birth as 1775. This later date 
approximates that already named (1783) as 
the possible time at which Saukenuk was 
founded. 

In respect to personal character, Black 
Hawk was a man of marked strength and no- 
bility. A savage by birth, he yet was singu- 
larly without the instincts of the savage. Al- 
though polygamy was practiced by his people, 
he never had but one wife. He realized the 



90 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

peculiarly demoralizing effect of intoxicants 
upon the Indian, and rarely, if ever, could be 
induced to depart from his rule of abstinence. 
He respected the helpless women and chil- 
dren of an enemy, and showed clemency even 
to male captives. A striking instance of his 
clemency to such a captive, is related by the 
scout, Elijah Kilbourn. In the war of 1812, 
Kilbourn was attached to the American army. 
Black Hawk and a band of Sauk warriors were 
serving in the ranks of the British. After the 
repulse of the British and Indians at Fort 
Stephenson in August, 181 3, Black Hawk be- 
came disgusted with the ill fortune just then 
attending the British arms and took summary 
leave for Rock river. Kilbourn with a party 
was sent by the Americans to follow him. 
The pursuit was continued until the party, be- 
coming confused by many trails, and being in 
the midst of Indian settlements, was forced to 
break up, each man looking out for his own 
safety. Suddenly, one day, on emerging from 
a thicket, Kilbourn saw at a distance an In- 
dian on his hands and knees slaking his thirst 
at a spring. Instinctively the scout leveled 
his rifle and pulled the trigger. The flint was 
shivered against the pan, but the priming 
failed to ignite. By this time the Indian had 
recovered himself and was leveling his rifle at 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 9I 

the scout. He did not fire, however, but ad- 
vanced upon Kilbourn and made him prisoner. 
Being ordered to march ahead of his captor, 
Kilbourn soon found himself in an Indian 
camp. Here, gaining a closer look, he 
recognized his captor as none other than 
Black Hawk himself. "The white mole digs 
deep, but Makataimeshekiakiak flies high and 
can see far off," said Black Hawk to the scout. 
After some words to his band, Black Hawk 
informed Kilbourn that he had decided to 
adopt him into the Sauk tribe. Accordingly, 
he was taken to Saukenuk, dressed and painted 
and formally received into the Sauk fellow- 
ship. Constantly watchful for a chance to 
escape, at length, after three years, he found 
it and regained civilization. But this was not 
all — nor, had it been all, would it perhaps have 
been so very remarkable ; for an Indian not in- 
frequently has been known to spare a captive, 
through caprice, and adopt him as a brother. 
What followed Kilbourn's escape, however, is 
remarkable. During the Black Hawk war of 
1832, he was again a scout in the service of 
the government, and was captured by Black 
Hawk at the battle (so called) of Stillman's 
Run. He nerved himself for the torture which 
he felt certain must now await him. Nor was 
he reassured in the least when Black Hawk, 



92 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

passing close to him, said in a low tone, 
" Does the mole think that Black Hawk for- 
gets?" But, just before sunset of the day of 
his capture, Black Hawk again came to him, 
loosed the cords that bound him to a tree 
and conducted him far into the forest. Paus- 
ing, the Indian said, "I am going to send you 
back to your chief, though I ought to kill 
you for running away a long time ago, after I 
had adopted you as a son ; but Black Hawk 
can forgive as well as fight."" 

The cause of Black Hawk's friendship for 
the British, as against the Americans, is plain ; 
the British were careful to keep their engage- 
ments with the Indians, while the Americans 
were not. The British Indian department 
was filled by men of long experience in In- 
dian affairs, and proved a most potent instru- 
mentality for enlisting the Indians on the side 
of the British whenever occasion required. 
In contrast to this, the American Indian de- 
partment was largely in the hands of men 
who had never seen an Indian until they met 
him in the difficult and delicate relations of In- 
dian agent. When, therefore, on the breaking 
out of the war of 1812, Col. Robert Dickson, 

I Kilbourn's narrative may be found, reprinted from " The 
Soldier's Cabinet," in Patterson's second edition of Black 
Haiok's Antobiography. The main points are also given 
by Black Hawk himself. Autobiog. 2d ed. pp. 37, 98. 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 93 

of the British Indian department sent word 
to the Sauks at Rock river to meet him at 
Green Bay, preparatory to moving against the 
Americans, they complied with alacrity. Black 
Hawk personally participated in the fight at 
the River Raisen, near Maiden, on January 
2 2d, 1 81 3, where he interposed to keep his 
warriors from joining in the massacre of 
American prisoners which was going on. 
Later, on May 5th, he was at the siege of Fort 
Meigs; and finally, on August 2d, took a 
hand in the attack on Fort Stephenson. Many 
years ago, a writer in the Bsi\t\more A pien'<:an, 
to whose credibility the editor of the paper 
bore testimony, stated that Black Hawk had 
told him that he also had fous^ht in the battle 
of the Thames. ^'During a residence of sev- 
eral years in what is now the territory of Iowa," 
says the writer, " I had many opportunities of 
seeing and conversing with Black Hawk. . . . 
In the course of our talk, I asked him if he 
was with Tecumseh when he was killed. 'I 
was,' said Black Hawk, 'and I will now tell 
you all about it.'" Then follows a circum- 
stantial narrative of the battle, ending in these 
words : 

"At the first discharge of their [the Americans'] 
guns, I saw Tecumseh stagger forwards over a 
fallen tree near which he was standing, letting his 



94 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

rifle drop at his feet. As soon as the Indians dis- 
covered he was killed, a panic came over them, 
and, fearing that the Great Spirit was displeased, 
they fought no longer." 

Besides the foregoing, W. Henry Starr, 
Esq., of Burlington, Iowa Territory, wrote as 
follows, on March 21st, 1839: 

"In the autumn of 1838, Black Hawk was at 
the house of an Indian trader in the vicinity of 
Burlington, when I became acquainted, and fre- 
quently conversed with him in broken English, 
and through the medium of gestures and pan- 
tomime. . . . On one occasion, I mentioned Te- 
cumseh to him, and he expressed the greatest joy 
that I had heard of him ; and, pointing away to 
the east and making a feint as if aiming a gun, 
said: 'Chemokaman [white man] nesso [kill]'; 
from which I have no doubt of his being person- 
ally acquainted with Tecumseh ; and I have been 
since informed, on good authority, that he was in 
the battle of the Thames and in several other en- 
gagements with that distinguished chief." 

These would seem to be strong evidences 
that Black Hawk did not sever his connection 
with the British army until October, 181 3, 
when the battle of the Thames was fought. 
Nevertheless, in the autobiography, it is ex- 
plicitly stated by Black Hawk that he and 
twenty of his warriors quietly left the British 
camp immediately after the repulse at Fort 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 95 

Stephenson. If this were not the fact, it is 
hard to understand why it is stated so to be 
in the autobiography, which in essentials is a 
trustworthy recital. 

The occurrence which caused the name of 
Black Hawk to become universally known in 
America, was the Black Hawk War of 1832.^ 
This wretched contest was the outgrowth of 
misunderstanding and of the encroachment 
of white settlers upon the public domain. In 
1804, at St. Louis, William Henry Harrison 
negotiated with several chiefs of the Sauk and 
Fox tribes a treaty, whereby were ceded to 
the United States many thousand acres of 
lands in Wisconsin and Illinois, including the 
site of Saukenuk. The validity of this treaty 
was never recognized by Black Hawk. He 
contended that the chiefs who signed it had 
no authority to do so, and, moreover, that 
they were induced to affix their names by 
grossly unfair means. However this may 
have been, the Indians by the terms of the 

J The Black Hawk War is more justly famous for the 
many men participating in it who afterwards gained dis- 
tinction in both the military and civil walks than for any- 
thing else. Among them were Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson 
Davis, Zachary Taylor, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert 
Anderson, of Fort Sumter celebrity, Phil Kearney and W. 
S. Harney, besides three governors of Illinois, — Ford, 
DuDcai) and Reynolds. 



96 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

treaty were permitted to occupy the ceded 
lands until such time as they should be sold 
to settlers; and when, before they were thus 
sold, settlers began to locate in the vicinity of 
Saukenuk, difficulties between the Indians 
and these settlers naturally arose. Finally, in 
1 83 1, the exasperation on both sides became 
intense, and an appeal was made by the set- 
tlers to Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, and 
to General Gaines, of the United States army, 
at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., forthwith to re- 
move the Indians from the State. Governor 
Reynolds thereupon called out the militia, and 
General Gaines started for Fort Armstrong, 
Rock Island, arriving there on June 3d with 
six companies of regulais. Black Hawk was 
summoned to a conference by General Gaines, 
which he and his braves attended, decked out 
in their war paint and bearing their war clubs. 
To the general's order to move across the 
river into the Iowa country, he returned a 
stubborn refusal. Later in the month, the 
militia ascended Rock river in a steamboat 
to Vandruff's Island, which they found de- 
serted, as also the Indian town below it. 
Black Hawk and his band had quietly re- 
moved across the Mississippi. But the militia, 
feeling it necessary to expend their martial 
ardor upon something, set fire tg the ancient 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 97 

metropolis of the Sauks and watched it con- 
sume to ashes. 

On June 30th, a formal engagement was en- 
tered into, between Black Hawk and General 
Gaines and Governor Reynolds, that the Sauk 
and Fox nations should at all times thereafter 
reside and hunt on the west side of the Mis- 
sissippi river, and not return to the east side 
without the express consent of the president 
of the United States or of the governor of 
Illinois. This engagement Black Hawk failed 
to keep. Just what actuated him most in 
breaking it perhaps is not clear, but among 
the motives at work stand out prominently an 
unconquerable love for the place of his birth 
and a desire there to spend the declining 
years of his life. Viewed from his standpoint, 
the Rock river country had never rightfully 
passed from the control of the Sauks ; it was 
the scene of the chief events in the life of that 
nation since their expulsion from Wiscon- 
sin ; nature, moreover, had made it very beau- 
tiful. In returning to it, to reclaim it, if 
possible,— that is, if the Winnebagoes and 
the Pottawattomies should join him, and the 
British render efficient aid, as he believed 
they would, — Black Hawk showed himself 
inspired in no small degree by the same 
spirit of patriotism that in ancient days made 



98 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

a hero of Epaminondas, and in modern of 
Washington. 

The re-appearance of the Sauks on Rock 
river, it is needless to say, produced a great 
commotion. Again the militia were called out, 
and the regulars, this time under command of 
General Atkinson, reinforced Fort Armstrong. 
Many murders were committed by Indians in 
different parts of Illinois ; almost all of them, 
however, by the Winnebagoes, — none by Black 
Hawk's band. But there were no considerable 
accessions to the invading force, which at the 
start numbered only about two hundred par- 
tially armed braves and warriors. Beginning 
at length to realize the futility of the attempt 
he was making, Black Hawk sent a flag of truce 
to Major Stillman, who was in command of 
the advance guard of the militia, and v/ho 
with his men was at this time (May 15th, 1832) 
encamped near a small stream since every- 
where known as Stillman's Run. The bearers 
of this flag were taken into custody by some 
of Stillman's men, and soon after a general 
rush was made by the whole command upon 
a small party of Black Hawk's warriors that 
was descried in the distance. Having suc- 
ceeded in killing two of these, the militiamen 
pushed forward till, falling into an ambus- 
cade hastily set for them by Black Hawk him- 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 99 

self, they were put to wild and ignominious 
flight. The story is told by Governor Ford, 
in his History of Illinois, that in Stillman's 
command was a member of the legal profes- 
sion just returned from riding the circuit. 
He had with him a pair of saddle-bags con- 
taininor a chanire of under-s^arments and sev- 
eral law books. These fell into the hands of 
the Indians, and the learned barrister used to 
relate with much vexation that Black Hawk 
"had decked himself out in his finery, appear- 
ing in the wild woods, amongst his savage 
companions, dressed in a ruffled shirt drawn 
over his deer-skin leggins, with a volume of 
'Chitty's Pleadings' under each arm." 

The fight at Stillman's Run was followed 
by others, notably those of Peckatonica Creek 
and Wisconsin Heights, both very disastrous 
to the Indians ; until, finally, their whole 
force was scattered, killed or captured at the 
battle of Bad Axe. Black Hawk, together 
with his old friend Winneshiek, the prophet, 
fled to the Big Dells, Wisconsin, where in 
August, 1832, he was discovered by the Win- 
nebago chiefs, Chaeter and the One-Eyed 
De Caury, and taken to General Street at 
Prairie du Chien. From Prairie du Chien, 
he was sent to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. 
After some months spent there in confine- 



lOO BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

ment, he was taken east, with a number of 
other Indians (among them Keokuk), and 
shown the great cities and wonderful resources 
of the American people. He made a second 
visit to the east in 1837, and died in October, 
1838, at his lodge on the Iowa river, near 
lowaville, to which locality he had removed 
shortly after his return from his first visit to 
the east. 

It was just after this first eastern visit that 
Black Hawk prepared and dictated his auto- 
biography — by far his greatest achievement 
of any kind, and destined to make not merely 
his name, but his thoughts and his feelings, 
known to distant times. It reveals him as 
possessed of lofty instincts ; a man of action, 
but still more a man of observation and re- 
flection ; a savage rising superior to the plane 
of savage existence, yet illustrating and illu- 
minating the ways of civilization by bringing 
them to the test of primitive standards. 
Moreover, it is thoroughly unique — the only 
true autobiography of an Indian extant. The 
manner of its production and publication is 
interesting. Black Hawk, having conceived 
the idea of putting in writing the reasons for 
his course in returning to Rock river, after 
the expulsion of his tribe in 1831, made it 
known to Antoine Le Claire, the United States 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. lOI 

Indian interpreter at Rock Island. Le Claire 
engaged a young printer, J. B. Patterson by 
name, as amanuensis, and the task was begun ; 
— Black Hawk dictating to Le Claire, Le 
Claire translating to Patterson, and Patterson 
committing to paper. After the whole was 
finished, Le Claire carefully read it all over 
to Black Hawk, to make sure of its accuracy. 
It was then officially certified to by Le Claire 
and printed by Patterson, the original edition 
being in small, crude volumes bound in cov- 
ers of common paste-board. Le Claire was 
until 1 86 1, when he died, a highly respected 
resident of Davenport, Iowa, and Patter- 
son in the last year (1891) has died, at 
an advanced age, in Oquawka, Illinois, where 
he has long lived and where he ever has been 
known as a man of the strictest honor. There 
can, therefore, be no doubt of the authen- 
ticity of the record which these men were the 
means of placing before the public. Besides, 
the internal evidence of authenticity is con- 
vincing. William J. Snelling (a son of 
Colonel Josiah Snelling of the United States 
Army, after whom Fort Snelling, Minnesota, 
was named), says in the North American 
Reviciu for January, 1835 : 

"That this [Black Hawk's Autobiography] is 
the bona fide work of Black Hawk, we have the 



I02 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

respectable testimony of Antoine Le Claire, the 
government interpreter for the Sacs and Foxes, 
and what (as we have not the honor of being 
acquainted with that gentleman) we deem more 
conclusive, the intrinsic evidence of the work 
itself. We will venture to affirm (and having 
long dwelt among the aborigines, we conceive 
ourselves entitled to do so) that no one but a Sac 
Indian could have written or dictated such a com- 
position. No white man, however great his abil- 
ity may be, could have executed a work so thor- 
oughly and truly Indian." 

In the autobiography, Black Hawk ex- 
presses opinions upon many subjects, — among 
them, marriage, land ownership, rotation in 
office, the savage, as contrasted with the civil- 
ized, mode of warfare, the American Indian 
establishment, the colonization of the negroes. 
As to land ownership, he was a precursor of 
Henry George, saying : 

" My reason teaches me that land cannot be 
sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to 
live upon and cultivate, as far as necessary for 
their subsistence, and so long as they occupy and 
cultivate it they have a right to the soil, but if 
they voluntarily leave it then any other people 
have a right to settle on it. Nothing can be sold 
but such things as can be carried away." 

His conclusion on politics, as he had seen 
the game manipulated, was that — 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK I03 

"The white people seem never to be satisfied. 
When they get a good father, they hold councils 
at the suggestion of some bad, ambitious man, 
who wants the place himself, and conclude among 
themselves that this man, or some other equally 
ambitious, would make a better father than they 
have, and nine times out of ten they don't get as 
good a one again." 

"He would recommend," he said, " to his Great 
Father [the President] the propriety of breaking 
up the present Indian establishment (under which 
new and inexperienced men were constantly sent 
to deal with the Indians) and creating a new one ; 
making the commanding officers at the different 
frontier posts the agents of the government for 
the different nations of Indians." 

In this recommendation, which is quite as 
apropos to-day as when made by Black Hawk 
in 1833, niost disinterested persons will 
heartily concur. On the then absorbing ques- 
tion of negro slavery, his views were unique. 

"I find," he says, "that a number of states ad- 
mit no slaves, whilst the remainder hold the ne- 
groes as slaves and are anxious, but do not know 
how, to get clear of them. I will now give my 
plan, which when understood I hope will be 
adopted. Let the free states remove all the ne- 
groes within their limits to the slave states ; then 
let our Great Father buy all the female negroes 
in the slave states between the ages of twelve and 
twenty, and sell them to the people of the free 



I04 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

States for a term of years, — say, those under fif- 
teen until they are twenty-one, and those of and 
over fifteen for five years ; and continue to buy 
all the females in the slave states as soon as they 
arrive at the age of twelve, and take them to the 
free states and dispose of them in the same way 
as the first ; and it will not be long before the 
country is clear of the black skins, about whom, 
I am told, they have been talking for a long time, 
and for whom they have expended a large amount 
of money. I have no doubt but our Great Father 
would do his part in accomplishing this object 
for his children, as he could not lose much by it, 
and would make them all happy. If the free 
states did not want them all for servants, we would 
take the remainder in our nation to help our 
women make corn." 

When in New York, he had witnessed a 
balloon ascension, and, concerning this, 
remarks : 

" We had seen many wonderful sights .... 
large villages, the great national road over the 
mountains, the railroad, steam carriages, ships, 
steamboats, and many other things ; but we were 
now about to witness a sight more surprising than 
any of these. We were told that a man was go- 
ing up in the air in a balloon. We watched with 
anxiety to see if this could be true ; and, to our 
utter astonishment, saw him ascend in the air un- 
til the eye could no longer perceive him. Our 
people were all surprised, and one of our young 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. I05 

men asked the prophet [Winneshiek] if he was 
going up to see the Great Spirit." 

He and his party were also treated to a dis- 
play of fire- works at Castle Garden, on which 
he makes the shrewd yet characteristically 
Indian comment that "it was an agreeable 
entertainment, but to the whites who wit- 
nessed it less magnificent than would have 
been the sight of one of our large prairies 
when on fire." The American women whom 
he met treated him handsomely, giving him 
small presents, and he condescends to say of 
them that they were " very kind, very good, 
and very pretty — for pale faces." 

Black Hawk's defense of his course in the 
Black Hawk war constitutes the principal part 
of his autobiography, and is plausible, — in 
many respects just. The line of it already 
has been intimated, however, and more is not 
necessary here. 

Next to Black Hawk, Keokuk is the lead- 
ing figure among the Sauks. He was younger 
than Black Hawk, having been born about 
1788, and was descended, on his mother's 
side, it is said, from the noted Captain Marin.* 
He was a fine athlete and horseman, and ex- 
tremely vain. Inferior to the older chief in 

'^Recollections of Augustirt Grignon, vol. iii, p. 211, 
Wis. Hist. Soc. Col. 



Io6 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

simplicity and dignity of character, he was 
far superior to him in wit, tact and shrewd- 
ness. Early perceiving the folly of contend- 
ing against the power and resources of the 
whites, he so shaped his course as to gain the 
white man's favor. When word came that 
the Sauks must remove from the Rock river, 
he promptly obeyed and sought a new abode 
on the Iowa. For his compliance in this 
thing and in others, he was recognized by the 
United States government as head chief of 
his nation, a proceeding which gave mortal 
offense to Black Hawk. 

Of Keokuk's wit a striking instance has 
been preserved. It seems (so the story runs) 
that on one occasion after the removal of the 
Sauks west of the Mississippi, they were sum- 
moned to a conference with the Mormons at 
Nauvoo, Illinois, by Joe Smith, the Mormon 
prophet. The object of the wily prophet in 
seeking the conference was to persuade the 
Indians into relinquishing to him certain 
lands which he coveted for the church. He 
accordingly prepared with great care the plea 
which he should make to them. At the ap- 
pointed time, Keokuk and the prophet, each 
in his best attire and attended by an imposing 
retinue, met in the Mormon temple. In con- 
cluding his address, the prophet said that it 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. I07 

had been divinely communicated to him that 
the Indian tribes of North America were the 
lost tribes of the House of Israel. Moreover, 
he had been commissioned from on high to 
assemble such of them as were near him and 
to remove them from where they were to a 
new land — a land flowing with milk and 
honey. To this Keokuk listened very atten- 
tively, and, after a respectful interval, he rose 
with much dignity to reply. As to whether 
or not the American Indians were the lost 
tribes spoken of by the prophet, he said he 
would not attempt to determine. This, how- 
ever, he would say : of milk his people were 
not fond — they much preferred water; and 
as for honey, it was to be had in ample quan- 
tities in the land they then occupied. Could 
not the prophet enter more fully into par- 
ticulars ? Did the government, in this land 
to which he desired the Indians to move, pay 
large annuities ? and was there there a plen- 
tiful supply of whiskey ? The conference, it 
need hardly be told, came to an abrupt ter- 
mination.' 

Keokuk's most remarkable gift was his elo- 
quence. This, according to all contemporary 
accounts, was in the highest degree stirring 
and effective. It brought him into great 

^ Recollections of Uriah Briggs. Annals of Iowa, 1865. 



Io8 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

prominence both among the Indians and in 
councils between them and the Americans. 
When Black Hawk was inciting Keokuk's 
band to return with him to Illinois and join 
his own braves in the struggle they were about 
to make to re-possess the ancient home of 
the Sauks, the eloquence and address of Keo- 
kuk were put to a severe test. He knew that 
the attempt must end in disaster, but the 
passions of his followers were aroused and 
were difficult to allay. His first words to 
them, therefore, were of sympathy with their 
alleged v/rongs. He told them that they had 
been unjustly treated, and hence were entitled 
to revenge. He even offered to lead them 
against their foe, "but," said he, 

" upon this condition : that we first put our wives 
and children and our aged men gently to sleep in 
that slumber which knows no waking this side the 
spirit land, .... for we go upon the long trail 
which has no turn." 

At the conclusion of his address, the desire 
of his young men for war was considerably 
abated. 

After the surrender of Black Hawk in Au- 
gust, 1832, a treaty was entered into between 
the Sauks and the United States, whereby the 
latter acquired the whole of eastern Iowa. 
This treaty, on the part of the United States, 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 109 

was negotiated by Gen. Winfield Scott, and, 
at the request of the Indians, provided 

" that there should be granted to Antoine Le 
Claire, interpreter, a part Indian, one section of 
land opposite Rock Island,^ and one section at 
the head of the first rapids above said island, 
within the county ceded by the Sauks and 
Foxes." 

At the negotiation of the treaty, Keokuk 
was the principal speaker on the part of the 
Indians. His death occurred in the State of 
Kansas, whither the remnant of his tribe ulti- 
mately removed. It was comparatively igno- 
ble, being the result of too heavy potations. 

Incidentally, mention already has been 
made of the island of Rock Island, which is 
situated in the Mississippi river, not far from 
the site once occupied by Saukenuk. This 
island is noteworthy on two accounts : its 
natural beauty and its romantic history. Its 
extreme length is two and seven -eighths 
miles, and its extreme width four-fifths of a 
mile. Its area is eight hundred acres, and 
originally it was covered by a dense growth 
of the oak, black walnut, elm, and basswood. 
Its substructure is rock, and it stands twenty 
feet above the highest freshets. In the eyes 
of the Indians, it was not only a spot of sur- 

* Now the site of a part of the city of Davenport, Iowa. 



no BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

passing loveliness, but was invested with a 
certain sacred charm. Says Black Hawk : 

" It was our garden, like the white people have 
near their big villages, which supplied us with 
strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries, plums, 
apples, and nuts of different kinds. Being situ- 
ated at the foot of the rapids, its waters supplied 
us with the finest fish. In my early life, I spent 
many happy days on this island. A good spirit 
had charge of it, which lived in a cave in the 
rocks immediately under the place where the fort 
now stands. This guardian spirit has often been 
seen by our people. It was white, with large 
wings like a swan's, but ten times larger. We 
were particular not to make much noise in that 
part of the island which it inhabited, for fear of 
disturbing it. But the noise at the fort has since 
driven it away, and no doubt a bad spirit has 
taken its place." 

Rock Island made its first considerable ap- 
pearance in history as far back as 1812. At 
that time the whole Northwest was practically 
a dense wilderness. There were trading set- 
tlements of log huts and wigwams at Detroit 
and Michillimackinac, in what is now the 
state of Michigan, and at Green Bay, Prairie 
du Chien, and Milwaukee, in what is now the 
state of Wisconsin. Fort Madison had been 
built and abandoned within the present limits 
of Iowa, and a few primitive abodes marked 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. Ill 

the site of Chicago, Illinois. On the lower 
Mississippi were the old French posts, Kas- 
kaskia, Cahokia, and St. Louis. The inhab- 
itants of these various places were fur traders 
and Canadian voyageurs, the latter a most in- 
teresting and picturesque class, improvident 
and light-hearted to a degree, spending the 
winter in hard labor, on a diet of corn and 
tallow, and lounging through the summer. 
Among the traders was a very remarkable 
man — one who exerted the greatest influence 
over the Sauk and Fox tribes. This man was 
Colonel Robert Dickson. He was an English- 
man, who had come to America in 1790 to 
traffic with the Indians, sacrificing to this end 
a good social connection and the comforts of 
civilization. 

In the Spring of 1814, Governor William 
Clark of Missouri sent an expedition to take 
possession of Prairie du Chien and erect a 
fort there. The fort was placed on a small 
elevation back of the settlement, mounted 
with six cannon and garrisoned by a force of 
seventy men under Lieutenant Joseph Per- 
kins. It was named Fort Shelby. Suddenly, 
on July 17th, there appeared before it a mot- 
ley force of British traders' clerks and Indians, 
six hundred and fifty in all, from Michilli- 
mackinac, under Lieutenant Colonel William 



112 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

McKay ; and, after a spirited interchange of 
cannon balls, the fort capitulated. Mean- 
while, under the direction of General Benja- 
min Howard, of the United States army, an 
expedition was fitting out at St. Louis to rein- 
force the garrison at Fort Shelby. This 
expedition, consisting of three barges carry- 
ing a force of regular troops and rangers, 
under the command of Captain John Camp- 
bell, of the First United States Infantry, started 
for Prairie du Chien on July iSth, ignorant, 
of course, of the fact that Fort Shelby had 
capitulated the day before. All went well 
until Rock Island was reached. Here the 
boats cast anchor for the night. The Indians 
swarmed about them in great numbers, mak- 
ing loud professions of friendship, but quietly 
signifying to the French boatmen in charge 
that they desired them to abandon their 
American comrades and return down the 
river. This the Indians did by seizing the 
hands of the Frenchmen and gently pulling 
them in a down stream direction. It was 
evident that the Indians meant to attack 
the boats, but did not wish to injure their 
old-time friends, the French.' The danger 

^ Black Hawk explains in the Autobiography that the 
Indians were at first sincere in their expressions of friend- 
ship for the Americans on this occasion, but that during the 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. II3 

was made known to Campbell, but he discred- 
ited its existence. The next morning the 
fleet set sail without hindrance, Campbell 
being in immediate command of the boat 
containing the regulars, and Captain Stephen 
Rector and Lieutenant Riggs, respectively, 
of the other two. The wind had risen and 
become so fierce that, just above Rock Island, 
Campbell's boat was driven on a large island 
near the mainland, ever since known as Camp- 
bell's Island. Sentinels were placed, and the 
men debarked and began cooking their break- 
fast. But in a moment the Indians, in hun- 
dreds, were upon them, delivering a deadly 
fire. Many were killed and wounded. Those 
who were unharmed took refuge in the boat. 
Among the wounded was Campbell himself. 
To add to the peril of the situation, the boat 
took fire. Black Hawk, who commanded the 
Indians in the attack, explains that this was 
due to fire arrows prepared by himself and 
shot by him against the sail. 

In the meantime, the other two barges, 
which had drawn far ahead of that com- 
manded by Campbell, had, with the greatest 

night word reached them of the capture of Fort Shelby by 
the British, and that the British desired them to join in the 
war against the Americans. This they could not find it in 
their hearts to refuse to do. 



114 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

difficulty, succeeded in returning to his aid. 
Rector's men, who were good sailors, first 
lightened their boat by casting overboard a 
large quantity of provisions, and then, leap- 
ing into the water on the side furthest from 
the Indians, pushed it broadside on against 
the burning boat of Campbell. The un- 
harmed and the wounded were quickly trans- 
ferred to Rector's boat, which, having been 
got back into the stream, was rowed night and 
day until it reached St. Louis. The boat of 
Riggs was outwardly in the possession of the 
Indians for some hours, but, it being well 
fortified, the Indians were unable to injure 
those within, and finally withdrew. It then 
followed Rector's boat down the river. 

The rough handling which Campbell's ex- 
pedition had received at the hands of the 
Sauk and Fox tribes naturally excited much 
resentment at St. Louis, and early in Septem- 
ber an expedition was started for their vil- 
lages to chastise them, and also to establish a 
fort on Rock Island. In this instance, the 
expedition consisted of three hundred and 
thirty-four officers and men, in several large 
barges armed with cannon, and was in com- 
mand of Major Zachary Taylor, of the regu- 
lar service. But the Indians had kept the 
British at Fort Shelby (now Fort McKay) 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. II5 

informed of the approach of the Americans, 
and a warm reception had been prepared for 
them. Captain Thos. G. Anderson, to whom 
the command of the fort had been turned 
over after its capture, had sent down to Rock 
Island a detachment of thirty men with three 
pieces of artillery. The artillery had been 
planted on the west side of the island near 
the foot of the rapids, it being supposed that 
Taylor's expedition was for the recapture of 
the fort at Prairie du Chien, and, therefore, 
must pass up the narrow channel between the 
island and what is now the Iowa shore. But 
when the boats came to anchor (as they did 
by stress of the wind) some distance below 
the foot of Rock Island, the guns had to be 
dragged to a position further down stream. 
This, however, was successfully accomplished, 
and on the morning of September 6, 1814, a 
brisk and well directed fire was opened, which 
after a short time so riddled the barges that 
they were obliged to drop down stream out 
of range. A council of war was then called 
by Taylor, and it being the unanimous opin- 
ion that the enemy was too strong to be 
overcome by the force at hand, the whole 
expedition set sail for Fort Madison, where it 
landed, and where Major Taylor wrote to 
General Howard his oflicial report of what 



H6 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

had transpired. It was the least glorious con- 
test in which the future hero of Buena Vista 
and Monterey was destined to be engaged. 
Finally, nearly two years after the conclu- 
sion of peace with Great Britain, the United 
States government was able to place Rock 
Island under military control. In May, 1816, 
General Thos. A. Smith landed at the island 
without opposition, left the 8th United States 
Infantry, under Colonel Lawrence, with or- 
ders to erect a fort ; while he himself pushed 
on to establish a post (now Fort Snelling) 
near the Falls of St. Anthony. Selecting the 
extreme northwest point of the island. Colonel 
Lawrence laid off a rectangular space, four 
hundred feet each way, and surrounded it by 
walls of hewn timber resting upon a substruc- 
ture of stone. At the northeast, southeast, 
and southwest angles, he caused block houses 
to be built, and these he provided with cannon. 
On the interior, against one side of the square, 
were erected the soldiers' barracks. They 
were of hewn timber, the roofs being made to 
slope inward, that it might be difficult for the 
Indians to set them on fire. When com- 
pleted, the work was christened Fort Arm- 
strong, in honor of the then Secretary of War. 
Coming suddenly into the view of the lonely 
voyager up the Mississippi, its whitewashed 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. II7 

walls and towers appeared, it has been said, not 
unlike the outworks of one of "those enchanted 
castles in an uninhabited desert so well de- 
scribed in the Arabian Nights Entertainments." 

Fort Armstrong (long since demolished) 
was never subjected to the ordeal of an Indian 
attack, but only narrowly escaped it on two 
occasions. The first was not long after its 
erection. One day, while most of the men 
were at some distance from the walls felling 
trees, a party of warriors headed by Chief 
Nekalequot, landed on the north side of the 
island and asked permission to dance in front 
of the commandant's headquarters. About the 
same time, another party of warriors, headed by 
Keokuk, was discovered approaching the fort 
from the south side of the island. Suspecting 
treachery, the Colonel immediately had the re- 
call sounded for the men and the cannon run 
out. The Indians were then ordered to dis- 
perse, which they did with some precipitation. 

With Colonel Lawrence, there came to 
Rock Island, as contractor for supplies to the 
post, a very striking character — Colonel 
George Davenport. Colonel Davenport was 
a native of England, had been first a sailor 
and then a soldier, in the latter capacity hav- 
ing served on the American side in the war 
of 181 2. He built a house on the island 



Il8 BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. 

near the fort, and engaged in trade with the 
Indians. In time he became very popular 
with them, and was freely consulted by them. 
Black Hawk especially reposed great confi- 
dence in him, and makes frequent reference 
to him in the autobiography. It perhaps 
was due to his presence on the island that 
the second projected attack upon the fort was 
not made. Be that as it may, in April, 1832, 
Black Hawk, having recrossed the Mississippi 
to the Illinois shore, came up opposite the 
island with his two hundred warriors at early 
evening, and, after meditatively surveying it 
for some time, crossed to it at one of the 
fords. The fort was feebly garrisoned at the 
time, and crowded with panic-stricken set- 
tlers ; as also was the stockade with which 
Colonel Davenport had surrounded the log 
store and dwelling built by him in 181 8, one- 
half mile northeast of the fort. But the In- 
dians did nothing, and by dawn a steamboat 
had arrived from Jefferson Barracks, bringing 
a reinforcement to the fort. On July 4, 1845, 
Colonel Davenport was murdered in his 
house (a later and more pretentious structure 
than that of 181 8) by a band of outlaws, dur- 
ing the absence of his family at a picnic gather- 
ing. The object of the miscreants was money, 
but they got little. Since then this house 



BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK. II9 

has been abandoned, and now stands a pictur- 
esque ruin on the banks of the Mississippi. 

With the incident last related, the history 
of Rock Island ceases to be romantic. In 
1862, the United States government passed 
an act establishing there a national arsenal. 
The work was begun by General Rodman, 
and was continued under his able successor, 
General D. W. Flagler. Ten immense shops 
of stone have been erected, and when all is 
completed, it is estimated that from this arse- 
nal alone can be armed, equipped, and sup- 
plied an army of 750,000 men. Nor have 
the aesthetic possibilities of the island been 
lost sight of. It is still, as it was in the days 
of Black Hawk, a charmed spot. Its wood- 
land has been left largely intact, and the 
phebe, the oriole, the cuckoo, and a host of 
other birds flit among the branches ; while 
beneath, from one's too intrusive feet, scud 
away the pheasant, the rabbit, and the squir- 
rel. It is intersected by quiet and secluded 
drives and walks, and abounds in dim loiter- 
ing places. But its greatest charm is that 
with which it forever has been invested by 
the words and deeds of the noted chieftain, 
now, like Hiawatha, departed 

" To the Islands of the Blessed, 
To the land of the Hereafter," 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 



A church without a prophet is not the church for me." 

Mormon Hymn. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

The reformed branch of the Mormon church, 
or church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 
comprises in Iowa some six thousand persons, 
and in the world not far from thirty thou- 
sand. Its headquarters now are at the village 
of Lamoni, Iowa, in Decatur county. Here 
it owns a church building containing a large 
auditorium and such other rooms as con- 
venience requires. Besides this building, the 
society owns in Lamoni a substantial pub- 
lishing house whence are issued the Holy 
Scriptures, (a translation and revision of the 
old and new Testaments by Joseph the Proph- 
et) the golden Bible or Book of Mormon, 
the Book of doctrine and covenants, the Life 
of Joseph the Prophet by Tullige, and another 
life of Joseph by his mother, entitled Joseph 
Smith and his Progenitors. This branch of 
the Mormon church eschews polygamy and 

123 



124 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

the doctrine of a blood atonement/ It claims 
to adhere strictly to the teachings of Joseph 
the prophet as contained in the Book of Mor- 
mon. At its head is Joseph Smith, Jr., son 
of the founder of the Mormon faith — a man 
of exemplary life and character and of entire 
sincerity. Proselytes to the society are made 
by missionaries, who are sent to England, to 
Wales, to Denmark, to Australia, and to the 
Society Islands. Some also are won to its 
membership through a mission which is main- 
tained in Utah. 

The events which led to the establishment 
of the reformed Mormon church may briefly 
be told. On the Exodus of the Mormons 
from Nauvoo in 1846, Joseph Smith, son of 
the prophet, remained behind with Emma 
Smith, his mother. Intimidation and violence 
were made use of by Brigham Young to com- 
pel Emma Smith to follow the fortunes of the 
church, but without avail. Indeed, the evidence 
is strong that at this time the prophet's widow 

'The doctrine of Blood Atonement came into existence 
in the Mormon church after the removal to Utah. Stated 
briefly, it is that apostasy and all other sins against the 
church are to be punished with death. The central idea of 
it has thus been put by Brigham Young: " There are sins 
that can be atoned for by an offering upon an altar, as in 
ancient days; and there are sins that the blood of a lamb, 
of a calf, or of turtle doves, cannot remit, but they must be 
atoned for by the blood of man." 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 25 

did not believe in the Mormon doctrine. 
Her son, Joseph, who in youth was constantly 
under her care and influence, did not con- 
sider himself a Mormon as late as 1853, when 
he reached his majority. Meanwhile those of 
the Mormons hostile to Young (of whom 
there were many in Illinois, Iowa, and 
Wisconsin) were ineffectually striving to 
form a new religious society. The chief 
difficulty was that too many aspired to the 
leadership. Sidney Rigdon, failing of it, had 
retired with a few disciples to his old home 
in Pennsylvania. James J. Strang — an elder 
under Joseph the prophet — conceiving a novel 
plan, had gone to Big Beaver Island, in Lake 
Michigan, where he had planted a Mormon 
colony, with himself at the head under the 
title of King Strang. Here he flourished for 
a time, showing some ability as a ruler ; but 
having countenanced polygamy, enjoined 
upon the women of his demesne the wearing 
of bloomers, and committed various other 
follies, he, like his celebrated predecessor and 
model. Smith, was assassinated, and his people 
dispersed. 

At length an organization of the Saints was 
effected at Zarahelma, Wisconsin, and in 
April, i860, Joseph Smith, Jr., consented to 
put himself at the head. This he did only 



126 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

after many solicitations. While he was pon- 
dering the matter different plans of action 
were proposed to him by admiring neighbors. 
One was "to go to Utah, depose Brigham 
Young, become rich, wed three or four wives, 
and enjoy existence." On uniting with the 
Mormons, Joseph Smith, Jr., agreed to remain 
at Nauvoo for five years in order to try 
whether the place could not again be made a 
rallying point for the church. When the 
news of this got abroad, a meeting was called 
in hot haste by the gentiles of the country 
round about, and resolutions passed protest- 
ing against the return of the Mormons. At 
a subsequent meeting it was even put to vote 
and carried that " no Mormon should be per- 
mitted to preach or pray in the county." 
Copies of these different resolutions were 
formally served on Smith. He also received 
letters threatening him with personal violence. 
In 1865, the headquarters of the new church 
were removed to Piano, Illinois. While here 
Smith carefully questioned his mother on cer- 
tain points respecting his father, the prophet, 
about which there had been (and yet is) much 
controversy. In this interview Emma Smith 
said that the prophet had never had 
any other wife ; nor ever, so far as she 
knew, had sustained unlawful relations to any 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 27 

woman. She said also that she believed the 
church to have been established by divine 
direction. To use her own words : "Joseph 
Smith [unaided] could neither write nor dic- 
tate a coherent and well-worded letter, let 
alone dictating a book like the Book of Mor- 
mon. And although I was an active partici- 
pant in the scenes that transpired, and was 
present during the translation of the plates, 
and had cognizance of things as they tran- 
spired, it is marvelous to me, 'a marvel and 
a wonder as much as to anybody else.'" 
Emma Smith said further concerning the com- 
position of the Book of Mormon: "Joseph 
would dictate hour after hour ; and when re- 
turning after meals, or after interruptions, he 
would at once begin where he had left off, 
without either seeing the manuscript or hear- 
ing any portion of it read to him. This was 
a usual thing for him to do. It would have 
been improbable that a learned man [of him- 
self] could do this ; and for one so ignorant 
and unlearned as he was, it was simply impos- 
sible." Piano continued to be the headquar- 
ters of the Reformed Mormon church until 
the year 1883, when they were again removed ; 
this time to Lamoni, Iowa. 

Facts such as the above, respecting a relig- 
ious society almost unknown to the world, yet 



128 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

to-day vigorously at work about us, show the 
wonderful vitality of all forms of Mormon- 
ism. It is the object of the following sketch 
to afford what explanation of this vitality may 
lie in an exact portrayal of primitive Mormon 
life — of life in Nauvoo in the days of Joseph 
the prophet. 



I. 

Nauvoo means the Place Beautiful. There 
can be no doubt of this, for was not the inter- 
pretation by Joseph Smith, who founded and 
christened the town and who alone among 
men held the key to that cabalistic tongue, 
the Reformed Egyptian, whence the word 
was derived?^ 

But Nauvoo certainly is beautiful in its 
commanding situation on the Illinois bluffs. 
Before it, in a curve of great majesty, — convex 
toward the Iowa shore — sweeps the Missis- 
sippi. A level tract of country extends east 
from the river for a mile and a half, or to 
where a north and south line would form a 
chord connecting the extremities of the arc 
or curve which the river makes. An acclivity 
begins along this imaginary line and increases 
gradually until an elevation is reached of one 
hundred and forty feet from the river margin. 

I An interesting surmise as to the origin of the word Nau- 
voo has been given the writer of this paper by Professor 
Toy, of Harvard. It is this: "There is a Hebrew word, 
naweh, which means ' beautiful.' Nauvoo is not Hebrew 
in form, but might have been a mispronunciation of the 
word mentioned." 

129 



130 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

On this elevation is the Nauvoo of to-day and 
here in the past was the wide-famed Mormon 
Temple. But the Nauvoo of the past mainly 
was on the flat between the river and the 
acclivity. Opposite Nauvoo are two features 
which enter into the landscape with it : one, 
a wide expanse of low land, upon which, near 
the river, has been reared the hamlet of Mont- 
rose ; the other, a mass of bluff, which is to 
the south of the hamlet, and springs boldly 
up from the water's edge. It is one hundred 
and seventy-one feet to the top of this bluff, 
and here many summer cottages have been 
built ; here also yearly the Methodists hold 
great camp meetings. The view of Nauvoo 
from the river is striking. The town is dis- 
tinctly visible, yet seems illusory and far 
away. The slope which it crowns is inclined 
gently from the eye, and hence the streets 
and buildings can be discerned with ease. 
At the same time the distance is such as to 
lend to the whole an air of remoteness and 
insubstantiality. Especially is this true on 
days flooded with sunshine. The place then 
appears as though it were held aloft against 
the blue sky in the grasp of some Colossus. 
At the distance of the river, by far the most 
noticeable object in Nauvoo is the spire of 
the Catholic church of St. Mary. This 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I31 

church stands near the spot formerly 
occupied by the Temple. Its spire is as 
high as was that of the Temple (one hundred 
and fifty feet) and serves, as did the Temple 
spire, strongly to accentuate the landscape. 
Up and down the Mississippi, and from 
miles away in Iowa, it can be seen — a land- 
mark lofty and impressive. In beholding it, 
now in plain view, now lost, now in view again, 
one can understand how the zealous Mormon 
leaving Nauvoo an exile would turn to gaze 
for the last time on the angel with golden 
trumpet which surmounted the spire of the 
Temple. Near St. Mary's, nestled among 
evergreens and shrubs, is the convent of the 
Benedictine sisters. In thus pitching upon 
picturesque and commanding sites for their 
ecclesiastical buildings the Catholic church 
instructs all others. Throughout the great 
valley of the Mississippi, at Dubuque, at 
Muscatine, at many towns, the church 
edifices, the convents, the schools of the great 
Catholic organization may be seen occupying 
the boldest bluffs, the most sightly elevations 
— spots whence can be flung abroad over 
woodland and meadow and stream the music 
of their matin and vesper bells. In securing 
a place for herself — at once so eligible and 
so historic — in Nauvoo, the Catholic church 



132 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

not only has followed a wise and time-honored 
custom, but has set a seal of triumph against 
not the least of her enemies. 

To look down from the old Temple site on 
a day in early June is to witness a scene of 
great interest and animation. The flat is 
covered with strawberry fields, and scores of 
pickers are bending and crouched among the 
vines. So distant are they that they seem 
bees hovering among the sweets of the clover 
bloom. Beyond them is the swirling and 
eddying river; beyond the river is the bluff — 
Bluff Park it is called — where the camp- 
meetings are held, now embowered in green 
foliage, but disclosing glimpses of the white 
tents of the campers ; and over all are the 
dazzling sunshine and the sweet, soft air. 
The evening hours at this season are not less 
enjoyable than those of the day. First comes 
the sunset, a royal pageant in scarlet in the 
far distant West. Could Joseph have been 
moved to his prophecy, that one day "the 
saints would become a mighty people in the 
midst of the Rocky Mountains," by fore- 
gleams of promise as to this western land in 
the Nauvoo sunsets ? Later there is singing 
in Bluff Park, perhaps by a large congregation 
of worshipers, perhaps by a small company, 
and the tones come floating to the ear across 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 33 

a space which so perfectly modulates and 
harmonizes them that they seem to sustain 
no relations to any purely human source. 
The many camp fires which flash and 
twinkle among the trees remind one of the 
similar fires which a half century ago were 
lighted on the same shore by the Mormon 
exiles in the bleak, chill February nights 
which they spent there in preparation for 
their flight into the wilderness. Having re- 
tired to bed in a spacious chamber of one of 
the old Mormon dwellings on the acclivity, 
the traveler can often see from his window the 
search-light of some approaching river packet 
as, with the fierce eyeball of a Cyclops, it roves 
along the channel and occasionally casts an 
inquiring and all-revealing glance over the 
land. 

In the autumn there are other sights. The 
great slope from the church of St. Mary to 
the river, and the many lesser slopes into 
which this great one is broken at the summit, 
are covered with vineyards, and in the last 
days of September and first days of October 
come in endless profusion the purple and 
white clusters of the Delaware, the Concord, 
and the Catawba. The air is slumbrous and 
full of haze; the river. Bluff Park, and the 
fields lately rife with the bloom and fruit of 



134 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

the strawberry, all are steeped in a mellow 
glory. To be in Nauvoo then is to be in 
Champagne or Burgundy. A large part of 
the grapes grown there are made into wine 
on the spot : into Catawba and other brands. 
Eighty thousand gallons are not an unusual 
product for a single season. 

The Nauvoo of Mormon days was sparsely 
scattered over an area of some six or eight 
square miles. It was laid out in blocks of 
four acres, and each block was subdivided into 
four lots. In this way generous room for 
gardens was provided in connection with the 
dwellings. The principal street of the town 
was Main street, which extended north and 
south across the fiat or peninsula, as it may 
be called, at a distance of a mile from the 
river. Another street of importance was 
Water street, which crossed Main at right 
ansfles, and was the street nearest the river on 
the southern side of the peninsula. There 
were eight streets running entirely across the 
peninsula north and south besides Main, and 
nineteen running east and west besides Water. 
The names of some of the former were Part- 
ridge, Carlin, Granger, and Bain ; of some of 
the latter — familiar because of having belonged 
to distinguished Mormons — Taylor, Carlos, 
Hyrum, Joseph, Young, Knight, Ripley, 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 35 

Miinson, Kimball, and Parley. The Temple 
stood in the centre of a block facing on Wells 
street, a thoroughfare that because of the 
broken nature of the ground was only par- 
tially completed. Back of it were the similar 
uncompleted streets, Woodruff, Page, Barnett, 
and others. The population of Nauvoo in 
its prime (1844) was perhaps not far from 
ten or twelve thousand persons. Its numbers 
frequently have been put at fifteen or twenty 
thousand, but with exaggeration. Its growth 
had been rapid in the extreme. In the 
summer of 1839 there were but a few log 
buildings. By June, 1840, two hundred and 
fifty buildings of log, frame, and brick had 
been erected and more were under way. 
During the years from 1840 to 1844 nearly 
four thousand persons were added to the pop- 
ulation of Nauvoo from foreign lands. A 
short distance south of the town was discovered 
and opened a quarry of hard limestone suit- 
able for the best uses of architecture. 
Steam saw mills were set up. There were also 
put in operation a steam flour mill, a tool 
factory, a foundry, and a manufactory of 
china ware. A steam boat owned and navi- 
gated by Mormons plied between Nauvoo and 
Fulton, Fort Madison, Keokuk, Warsaw, and 
other adjacent villages on the Mississippi. 



136 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

Capping all, two regular publications — the 
Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor — 
were issued, and found readers as far east as 
Philadelphia and Boston. At the time of the 
Exodus of the Mormons in 1846, an eye wit- 
ness of events counted from the roof of the 
Temple two thousand houses in the city- 
proper and in the suburbs five hundred more. 
One half of these were mere shanties built 
some of logs and some of poles plastered 
over; others were framed. Of the remainder 
about twelve hundred were tolerably fit 
dwellings ; six hundred of them at least were 
good brick or frame structures. The number 
of buildings made wholly of brick was about 
five hundred, a goodly proportion of them 
large and handsome. 

To-day Nauvoo is a town of twelve hundred 
people. To the visitor the evidences of 
former and long departed prosperity pre- 
sent themselves on every hand. At the foot 
of Main street, to the left as one faces the 
river, stands the unfinished Nauvoo house, 
the hotel commanded by Jehovah in a vision 
to Joseph Smith to be built "for the boarding 
of strangers," and in which, according to the 
prophet's interpretation of Jehovah's words, 
he (the prophet) "and his seed after him 
were to have place from generation to gene- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I37 

ration, forever and ever." The building as 
projected, and in part laid out, was large. Not 
all of the foundation even was laid at the 
time of the Exodus ; but the south-west angle 
was partly completed and exhibits in the 
brick and stone work traces of superior me- 
chanical skill. The bricks especially are 
seen to have been laid with a precision and 
pointed with a skill hard to be excelled. 
The rooms within the completed part are lofty 
and spacious, and look forth upon the hurry- 
ing river not forty feet away. Emma Smith, 
the wife of the prophet, the electra Cyria or 
elect lady of his writings, lived for some 
years in these rooms after the murder of her 
husband. One block to the north of the 
crumbling Nauvoo House is the frame build- 
ing known as the Mansion House, in which 
the prophet lived and kept tavern while await- 
ing the completion of his permanent abode. 
The rooms of this house also are large ; in one 
of them is a closet which on casual inspection 
seems to be a very ordinary affair, but which 
has its secret. Protruding from cross pieces 
fastened against its four sides are wooden pegs 
for the support of clothing. Pull out (as 
you can if you wish to try) from the cross 
piece on the left hand side of the closet the 
further peg, then strike upward the cross 



138 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

piece itself. It will respond to your blow by 
rising on a pivot, and the top edge of a low 
door will be revealed. This door when 
opened discloses a shaft just large enough to 
contain a perpendicular ladder reaching to 
the loft of the house. When Joseph Smith 
was being hotly pursued by the authorities of 
Illinois in 1842-3 on requisition from the gov- 
ernor of Missouri, his whereabouts were often 
difficult to fix. That he was somewhere on his 
own premises was suspected. That he was in 
the loft of his dwelling would seem strongly 
to be indicated by the existence of the 
contrivance for concealment just described. 
Across Main street from the Nauvoo House 
is the old, weather-beaten frame building 
in which Emma Smith, the wife of the 
prophet, passed many of the declining years 
of her life. This building with the land about 
it was the first piece of property bought by 
the prophet on reaching Nauvoo. In the 
door-yard, directly above the river and 
shielded by shrubbery, are the graves of 
Emma Smith and of other members of the 
prophet's family. 

Looking up Main street the visitor sees a 
goodly number of large and substantial but 
widely separated brick edifices. Among them 
are the Hall which was used by the Mormon 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I 39 

Masonic order and the residences which were 
occupied by Brigham Young and the Elders, 
Kimball and Pratt. Young's residence, like 
the most of those built by the Mormons, is 
protected by quaintly notched fire walls above 
the gables — such walls as are to be seen above 
the old Boston State House and in prints of 
the old parts of cities in Europe. The house 
of John D. Lee — the Mormon Bishop so 
notorious in connection with the Mountain 
Meadow massacre — which for a long time 
stood on Carlin street, has been torn down. 
The Hall of the Seventies, which marked the 
corner of Granger and Kimball streets, also 
has been removed. Of the Council House, 
in which religious and other meetings were 
held during the erection of the Temple, and 
which stood at the intersection of Water and 
Granger streets, only the foundation remains. 
The office of the Times and Seasons was one 
block west of the Council House on Water 
and Bain streets. It has been removed from 
this site, and is now in another part of the town. 
The office of the Nauvoo Expositor — famous 
for the issue of a solitary edition ere its type 
were pied in the street by order of the indig- 
nant prophet, whom it had assailed for im- 
moral practices — still stands in its original 
place on Mulholland street near Temple 



140 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

square. Just west of Temple square, and 
down the acclivity from it in the same en- 
closure with the convent of the Benedictine 
Sisters, is the small stone structure — now used 
for a stable — in which the military organiza- 
tion of Nauvoo — the celebrated Nauvoo Le- 
gion — kept their arms and other accoutre- 
ments. The wide gaps and spaces now ex- 
isting between the different buildings that 
have come down from Mormon days — on 
Main street especially — have been caused by 
the decay and removal of the structures of 
logs and boards which once closed them up. 
Of the buildings removed some are to be 
found across the river in Montrose, whither 
they have been transported in winter time 
upon the ice. All about Nauvoo, on the ac- 
clivity and on the flat, are to be found the 
partially obliterated traces of old walls and 
cellars betokening the great decrease in the 
number of places for habitation which the 
years have brought since the departure of the 
Mormons. It is little short of startling that 
Salt Lake City — the site of which, when 
chosen by the exiles from Nauvoo, was yet 
hardly within the United States and was a 
thousand miles from the nearest civilization, 
should for many years have been connected 
with the rest of the world by railroads ; while 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I4I 

Nauvoo itself continues to be brought into 
outside relations only by the Mississippi river. 
With this thought in mind, it does not seem so 
strange that there should be persons in Nauvoo 
to-day who almost wish the exiles back again. 
The Mormon Temple, as has been said, 
stood in the centre of Temple square on 
Wells street. Not a vestige of its walls or of 
the stone blocks, which composed its walls, is 
now to be found there. The spot is covered 
in part by houses and in part by outbuildings 
and the debris of back yards. A structure as 
light and perishable as the frame dwelling 
first owned by the prophet in Nauvoo still 
stands, but the great Temple with its steps, 
its ])ilasters, and its tower, has disappeared 
forever. During the Mormon exodus it was 
sold to a French communistic society, called 
Icarians, under the leadership of Etienne 
Cabet ; and, while under their control, in 
November, 1848, was destroyed by fire with 
the exception of the bare walls. In 1850, 
three of these went down before a tornado, 
which the Icarians described as of frightful 
sublimitv. The fourth or west wall remained 
in place some years longer, being strongly 
joined at the sides to an interior wall parallel 
with it. The only picture of the ruins of the 
Temple, which exists exhibits this west wall 



142 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

surrounded at the base by heaped and broken 
masonry. For many years these ruins — like 
those of the Roman Coliseum — were a stone 
quarry for other edifices. There is hardly a 
building of any pretensions in Nauvoo, 
erected within the last forty years, which has 
not somewhere, in its foundation or super- 
structure, stone from the Mormon Temple. 
It is a hard white stone susceptible of hand- 
some finish. The post-office is built of it 
almost entirely, and it is to be found in the 
walls of churches and of the huge wine cel- 
lars. In i860, the remaining fragments were 
carted from the Temple site and pitched helter- 
skelter into an orchard lot owned by one of 
Nauvoo's oldest residents. There they can be 
seen now : clock face, (for the Temple had a 
clock among its embellishments) quaint, sun- 
visaged, pilaster, capitals, and much besides. 

Visiting this orchard one bright spring day, 
I seated myself on a stone block, in somewhat 
the mood of Macaulay's famous New Zea- 
lander, and drifted into retrospect. It was 
the 6th of April, 1841, — the day on which the 
corner-stones of the Temple were to be laid 
in place. Approaching Nauvoo from Carth- 
age and from other points eastward were farm 
vehicles in great numbers and of every kind, 
bringing crowds to celebrate the event. Boats 



II 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I43 

brought many from Warsaw, from Fort Madi- 
son, and from Montrose. The town was en fete. 
The Nauvoo Legion paraded in full strength, 
with new arms and new uniforms. Lieutenant- 
General Joseph Smith, resplendent in gold 
cord and cocked hat and escorted by an 
equally resplendent staff, rode through the 
streets. Everywhere cheers greeted him. There 
were martial music and thunder of cannon. 
The ladies of Nauvoo presented a flag to the 
Legion. A procession was formed, and the 
line of march taken to the site of the Temple. 
The site reached, hymns were sung, and 
President Sidney Rigdon made an address. 
The architect lowered the first stone — the one 
at the southeast corner of the edifice — into 
position. The prophet, who had laid aside 
his military regalia, blessed the stone in these 
words: "This principal corner-stone in rep- 
resentation of the first presidency is now duly 
laid in honor of the great God ; and may it 
there remain until the whole fabric is com- 
pleted ; and may the same be accomplished 
speedily that the Saints may have a place to 
worship God and the Son of Man have where 
to lay his head." 

From the 6th of April, 1841, it now came 
to be the 24th of May, 1845. I^ was six 
o'clock on a clear and beautiful morning. 



144 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

The walls of the Temple were up, and the 
cap-stone ready to be put in place. The 
ceremonies were directed by the Twelve 
headed by President Brigham Young, and a 
great crowd of the Saints were gathered on 
the slope of the acclivity to witness them. 
On the summit of the west wall a band of 
musicians played national and religious airs. 
The stone was brought forward, and the 
crowd broke forth " into shouts of Grace, 
Grace unto it!" It was lowered into posi- 
tion, and this shout was exchanged for " Ho- 
sanna to God and the Lamb ! Amen ! and Amen !" 
repeated three times — an acclaim, which 
seemed not only to give joy on earth, but to 
fill the heavens with gladness. A hymn rose 
on the air : 

' ' Have you heard the revelation 
Of this latter dispensation 
Which is unto every Nation, 
Oh ! prepare to meet thy God ? 

We are a band of brethren, 
And we rear the Lord a temple, ^ 
And the cap-stone now is finished. 
And we'll sound the news abroad." 

The Temple, the structure which, it was 
proudly claimed, exhibited more of revela- 
tion, more of splendor, and more of God 
than all others in the world, was standing 
before me in completed outline. Support- 
ing the cornice were the thirty hewn stone 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 45 

pilasters ; the base of each a crescent moon ; 
the capital of each a sun, with human face 
surmounted by two hands holding trumpets. 
There were the two great stories and two half 
stories ; the four tiers of windows, gothic and 
round in alternation; the golden letters, "Holi- 
ness to the Lord," above the entrance ; and, 
soaring one hundred feet over all into the blue 
sky, the spire. 

Bringing now my revery to an end, for the 
sun had gone down, I rose with the thought: 
So long past are Mormon days in the Northwest 
that their occurrences, like those of other days 
of the same period the world over, begin to 
take on an air of strangeness and of romance.* 

^ Upon an old building in Nauvoo, situated at the corner 
of Mulholland and Woodruff streets, which at one time 
was the abode of the officers of the Icarian society, may 
be read the following inscription : ' ' Celui qui a pris Vhon- 
neur d' une personne ne pent plus ricii lui prendre." [In 
good English paraphrase: "He who filches from me my 
good name takes that which .... makes me poor in- 
deed."] Elsewhere in Nauvoo a German who, through 
much litigation over a title, became deeply impressed with 
the fleeting character of earthly possessions, has thus re- 
corded himself on the weather-boards of his house just be- 
neath the western gable : 

"Das haus ist me in, und doch tiicht mein; 
Wer nach mir komint wird auch so sein." 

[This house is mine and yet not mine. It will be the same 
with him who shall own it after me.] From all of which it 
appears that the Mormons have not been the only people 
with peculiarities who have dwelt in the Place Beautiful. 



146 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

II. 

The founder of Mormonism and its first 
Prophet was Joseph Smith. He it was who 
built Nauvoo, and he it was in obedience to 
whom missionaries went forth to Europe, to 
Palestine and to the islands of the sea. To 
say of him that he was one of the most success- 
ful impostors of modern times — probably as 
little self-deceived as any man that ever has 
lived — is not to do him injustice. To say of 
him also that he possessed something akin to 
genius in his comprehension of, and power 
over, a certain simple-minded, usually honest 
class of people, but superstitious and fanatical, 
is merely to accord him his due. It hardly is 
a fair explanation of his supremacy during the 
Nauvoo period to state, as does John Hay in 
the Atlantic Monthly^ that "a little brains 
went further in Nauvoo than anywhere else 
on earth," yet the jest is not without its crit- 
ical value- 
As a youth, Smith has been described by 
ex-Gov. Harding, of Utah Territory, who 
often saw him in his native town of Palmyra, 
New York. He was six feet tall, long-limbed, 
and with big feet ; his hair a light auburn ; 
his eyes large and of a bluish gray color; 
his nose prominent; his face pale and un- 






NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I47 

bearded, and his mouth a study. The same 
man says further concerning him that he was 
a lazy boy; spent his time largely in fishing; 
rarely smiled ; never quarreled or fought ; was 
hard on bird's nests ; and so constitutionally 
and inveterately untruthful that in the town 
where he lived it was a common observation 
on any improbable tale that it was as big a 
lie as young Joe ever told. Nor, seemingly, 
were his parents and his brothers held in 
any better esteem in Palmyra than was he. 
Mr. Pomeroy Tucker, who personally knew 
them all, says of them in his book on Mor- 
monism : "The Smith family were popularly 
regarded as an illiterate, whiskey drinking, 
shiftless, irreligious race of people; and," he 
adds, "Joseph was unanimously voted the 
laziest and most worthless of the generation." 
This statement may be supplemented by the 
final one, that a written declaration of the un- 
truthfulness and viciousness of the entire 
Smith family was, in 1833, made and signed 
by sixty-two of the best citizens of Palmyra and 
repeatedly has been published. But, despite 
all his personal and family drawbacks. Smith 
forged rapidly to the front. He pretended 
to be able to locate hidden treasures by the 
aid of a witch-hazel rod, and finding certain 
of his neighbors credulous enough to believe 



148 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

him, was emboldened to try something greater. 
One day he came into his father's house at 
the dinner hour holding a package concealed 
under his coat. To the somewhat natural 
enquiry of the family as to what it was, he 
replied that it was a golden Bible. This reply 
meeting with some favor, he refused to show 
what he really had, but followed up the ad- 
vantage gained by circulating reports as to his 
Bible discovery among the towns-people. The 
sort of people some of those were who, in the 
little town of Palmyra, and in the country 
about it, listened to Smith may be inferred 
from their behavior when under religious ex- 
citement. They would run through the fields, 
get upon stumps, preach to imaginary con- 
gregations, enter the water ; would make the 
most ridiculous grimaces, creep upon their 
hands and feet, and roll on the frozen ground. 
At the dead hour of night, young men among 
them might be seen running over the fields 
and hills in pursuit of, as they said, balls of 
fire which they had detected moving in the 
atmosphere. 

Smith's influence over a mind at all 
superstitious — even when sound in other 
ways — is shown by the infatuation into which 
he drew his townsman Martin Harris ; an 
infatuation which led Harris to exhaust his 






NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I49 

hard earned means in publishing the Book of 
Mormon. To Harris's believing ears — as 
often as was necessary in order to keep him 
to the work — we may imagine the cunning 
Joseph to have repeated the marvelous tale of 
how, amid thick darkness, a pillar of light had 
descended until it fell about him revealing 
two personages whose brightness and glory 
defied all description, one of whom pointing 
to the other had said : ''This is my beloved 
son, hear him !" But illustrations of Smith's 
ingenuity and cleverness in advancing his 
own fortunes abound. Thus in 1830 he 
announced himself as in receipt of a revela- 
tion consecrating and setting apart his wife 
Emma as an elect lady. She was to be sup- 
ported from the church and to " let her soul 
delight in her husband." Thus also in 1836, 
in Kirtland, Ohio, when the money resources 
of the Saints were at an exceptionally low 
ebb, the prophet received a timely revelation 
commanding the establishment of the Kirt- 
land Safety Society anti-Banking Company — 
an institution which, after unlawfully putting 
in circulation a large quantity of bills, was 
brought to a stop by proceedings in the courts. 
On the march from Kirtland to Missouri in 
1834, there were a number of occurrences 
demonstrating, not only the infatuation of 



150 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

the Saints, but as well, their poverty of humor. 
Coming one day to a large prehistoric mound, 
the prophet ordered it to be opened. A little 
beneath the surface the bones of a human 
skeleton were found. These the prophet 
declared to be the remains of a Lamanite 
warrior and chieftain whose name was Selaph, 
and who had been killed in the last struggle 
between the Lamanites and Nephites. On 
another occasion a large black snake was dis- 
covered near the road. Martin Harris, whose 
confidence in the possession by Joseph and 
his disciples of the power to work miracles 
was yet unshaken, removed his shoes and 
stockings and, commanding the reptile not to 
do him harm, somewhat gingerly presented 
his toes to its head. The snake remained 
quiet, and Harris loudly proclaimed a victory 
over serpents. But, on repeating this test of 
miraculous power in the case of another snake, 
he received a wound in the ankle. This was 
satisfactorily accounted for by the prophet, 
who imputed to Harris a weakened faith. It 
was while on this first journey westward from 
Kirtland that Smith defined an angel as "a 
tall, slim, well built, handsome man with a 
bright pillar upon his head." 

On the advent of Joseph Smith at the place 
which he forthwith named Nauvoo, and whither 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I5I 

both he and his followers had fled from real 
persecution in Missouri, revelations to meet 
present exigencies and requirements came 
rapidly. First among them was the injunc- 
tion to build a house unto the name of Joseph 
— the Nauvoo House; next an injunction to 
build a house unto the name of Joseph for the 
most High to dwell therein — the Temple. To 
defray the cost of the latter "the Saints from 
afar" are bidden to come with all their gold, 
silver, precious stones, and antiquities ; to 
bring the box tree, the fir tree, and the pine 
tree; together with iron, copper, brass, and 
zinc. As a means of preventing delay in the 
work, the Saints are told that only a speci- 
fied time is allowed them by Jehovah in which 
to finish the Temple ; after the expiration 
of that time, their baptisms for the dead 
and their prayers will be absolutely unaccept- 
able. The medium chosen for getting these 
important revelations before the people of 
Nauvoo was the semi-monthly periodical and 
newspaper — the Ti?nes and Seasons. The ed- 
itor of this paper more than once found it 
necessary strongly to emphasize the penalties 
prescribed by Jehovah for neglect of his com- 
mands. Thus, in December, 1841, word was 
published that because of the sloth and disobe- 
dience of certain Saints, grave doubts were 



152 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET, 

felt by the authorities of the church as to the 
propriety of any longer administering to any 
Saint the rite of baptism. For, it was con- 
vincingly argued, if the whole church with 
her dead " is to be rejected of God for the 
sins of a few, she may as well be rejected with- 
out baptism as with it." In the same issue 
containing the above appeared a list of such 
offerings and services as were in immediate 
demand. Among the offerings named v/ere 
beds, bedding, socks, mittens, shoes, clothing, 
and provisions of all kinds ; among the ser- 
vices named were those of stone cutters, quar- 
rymen, and teams and teamsters. In June, 
1842, another appeal had to be made. This 
time it was put in poetic form. 

" Prepare for that glory the prophets once saw," 
(Sang the editor of the Times and Seasons.) 
"And bring on your gold and your precious 
things too, 
As tithes for the Temple of God at Nauvoo. " 

Even this did not wholly sui^ce, for in 
August, 1844, an editorial appeared under 
the sinister heading, "A Word to the Wise." 
From it the fact was learned that Joseph had 
had a revelation respecting tithing ; and so ex- 
plicit was the language of this revelation 
" that he who ran might read it and a fool need 



NAtrVOO AND THE PROPHET. I53 

not err." The language in question was to 
the effect that the Lord required of his Saints, 
for the building of his House, all their sur- 
plus property, and, after that, "one tenth of 
all their interest annually." 

But the Times and Seasons is of more 
interest to us now as a mirror of Mormon 
life and practices in Nauvoo than as a 
medium of revelations. In its columns we 
find many things not wanting in unconscious 
humor. For example, one of the early edit- 
ors (Don Carlos Smith) gravely assures his 
readers that no pains will be spared by him 
to make the paper both interesting and valu- 
able; for through it he aims at nothing less 
than the salvation of the human family. A 
month later he gives somewhat in detail the 
plan upon which he will work. He will advo- 
cate the doctrines of the church of Jesus 
Christ of Latter Day Saints, soliciting original 
essays of a nature " Eclectic, Analectic, and 
Analytic." In his efforts for the regenera- 
tion of the world, Don Carlos met with the 
discouragements inseparable from large enter- 
prises. At least this seems fairly to be infer- 
red from such a remark in his columns as : 
" Printers like all other men live by eating ; 
and in cold weather fire is very useful ;" or 
from such a remark as : " It has been so long 



154 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

since we have had any honey that we are very 
certain we should not refuse any if it were 
offered us, especially if it were clear and 
nice;" or from such another remark as: 
"Those of our subscribers who are delinquent 
and who live in this vicinity can bring us, in 
payment, wood or any kind of produce, as 
these things are very necessary in a family." 
As Nauvoo increased in size, it naturally offered 
afield for various useful and ornamental trades ; 
and it was also natural that these trades should 
be represented in the Times and Seasons by 
advertisements. Among these advertisements 
was the card of a tailor announcing the latest 
fashions direct from Philadelphia ; the card of 
a dress-maker begging to inform the ladies of 
Nauvoo that she stood prepared to render them 
valuable service in her art, and further that 
she had had several years experience therein 
under a French modiste ; the card of a sur- 
geon dentist "from Berlin in Prussia, late of 
Liverpool and Preston, England," who awaited 
patronage at the house of Brigham Young and 
whose "charges were strictly moderate;" the 
card of a solitary attorney -at-law, with office 
near the Temple ; lastly the card of a druggist 
and physician who had for sale Vancouver's 
powders for the immediate cure of the fever 
and ague and who ought to have had patron- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 55 

age, if anybody ought, for in that part of Nau- 
voo built on the flat, fever and ague prevailed 
much of the time. But doctors were not popu- 
lar with the Saints, we are editorially in- 
formed in the Times and Seasons, for the rea- 
son that the latter prefer as a dependence in 
sickness "the commandments of God to an 
arm of flesh." Poetry, as has been seen, was 
not an art despised in Nauvoo. Its leading 
devotee was Eliza R. Snow. She gave the 
muse little rest. She had something in 
nearly every number of the Times and Seasofis. 
She celebrated in execrable verse everything 
from President William Henry Harrison to the 
Nauvoo Legion. But, bad as she was, there 
was one rhymster in Nauvoo who was worse. 
This was Elder Partridge, who one day in 
April, 1840, delivered himself of the following 
concerning the hardships endured by the Saints 
in Missouri : 

" They have been tarr'd, feather'd, and often 
times whip'd. 
Been murder'd and plunder'd and robb'd, 
and driv'n. 
Their houses destroy'd till they have been strip'd 
Of all earthly wealth, but they've treasures in 
heav'n." 

It was not alone by poetizing that the 
Saints manifested an interest in culture. 



156 NAUVOO ANt) THE PROPHET. 

They founded a university. Its curriculum 
was extensive, including arithmetic, algebra, 
plane and analytical geometry, conic sections, 
plane, spherical, and analytical trigonometry, 
mensuration, surveying, navigation, the dif- 
ferential and integral calculus, astronomy, 
chemistry, and mental philosophy. But more 
surprising than all else is the fact that these 
numerous branches of learning were classed 
as English literature, and taught by one man 
— Professor Orson Pratt. The tuition of 
students was announced in the Times ana 
Seasons to be five dollars per quarter, payable 
semi -quarterly in advance. Liberal as was 
the encouragement given by the church to 
science and letters, it believed in rigorous- 
ness in respect to conduct. It dictated to, 
anathematized, and excommunicated refract- 
ory members with an assumption of omnipo- 
tence worthy the best days of the Papacy. 
Thus, on September 28, 1841, Elder James 
M. Henderson is ordered by the Quorum of 
Seventies to come home immediately. On 
November 15, 1841, it is unanimously voted 
at a council of the First Presidency and of 
the Twelve that John E. Page return to Nau- 
voo without delay. In January, 1842, Elder 
A. Lits is ordered to come to Nauvoo imme- 
diately to answer charges which may be pre- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 57 

ferred against him ; and Dr. Benjamin Win- 
chester is silenced from preaching until he 
makes satisfaction for disobeying the instruc- 
tions delivered to him by the Presidency. In 
July, 1842, notice is given that Dr. Benjamin 
Winchester, having repented and recanted, is 
restored to his former fellowship in the church. 
On November 23, 1844, it is resolved by the 
High Council that Amos B. Tomlinson and 
Ebenezer Robinson and wife be cast oft from 
the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day 
Saints for apostasy, and that notice of the fact 
be published in the Times and Seasons. Along 
with, yet in strange contrast, to items such as 
the foregoing, we read on January i, 1841, 
that " a late arrival at New Orleans states that 
in October past there was a French frigate at 
St. Helena to take the remains of Napoleon 
to France." 

But meantime Nauvoo had waxed great, 
and with it Joseph the prophet. A charter 
for the town had been obtained from the 
admiring people of Illinois, under which the 
municipality was almost independent of the 
state. The formation of the Nauvoo Legion 
had been authorized, and the prophet had 
been commissioned its Lieutenant-General, 
and John C. Bennet, at that time the prophet's 
main dependence, its Major-General. Letters 



158 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

mailed at Nauvoo bore the proud address, 
The City of Joseph. The New York Herald 
called Smith the Western Mahomet, the 
Prophet of America. Besides the land bought 
in Illinois for the site of Nauvoo, several thou- 
sand acres had been bought or contracted for 
by the Saints near the village of Keokuk in 
Iowa. In a word, preparations for the found- 
ing of something like a Mormon Empire on 
the banks of the Mississippi were well ad- 
vanced. The vital importance, in state and 
congressional elections, of the three thousand 
Mormon votes of Nauvoo and vicinity, which 
were always cast as the prophet directed, had 
come to be recognized by candidates; and 
political parties vied with each other in bid- 
ding for the prophet's favor. On the one 
hand, he was assiduously courted by Douglas 
and the democrats ; while, on the other, Lin- 
coln, sent him pamphlets and strove to attach 
him to the whigs. Douglas, however, was in 
a position to render him the most aid, and 
hence was most to his mind. He pronounced 
him a master spirit. In 1839 Smith had gone 
to Washington to see President Van Buren 
concerning the outrages perpetrated on the 
Mormons by the Missourians, but had got no 
satisfaction. Accordingly, when the presiden- 
tial election of 1844 was approaching, he 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 59 

made it his business to sound the different 
candidates for their views on the Mormon 
question. He wrote to John C. Calhoun, 
Lewis Cass, Richard M. Johnson, Henry Clay, 
and Martin Van Buren. Calhoun and Clay 
courteously responded, but intimated the im- 
propriety in their formulating definitive views 
on the question at that time. Smith's replies 
to these gentlemen are curiosities in epistolary 
composition. In the one to Calhoun this 
characteristic passage is found : " While I 
have power of body and mind — while water 
runs and grass grows — while virtue is lovely 
and vice hateful — and while a stone points 
out a spot where a fragment of American 
liberty once was, I or my posterity will plead 
the cause of injured innocence, until Missouri 
makes atonement for all her sins, or sinks dis- 
graced, degraded, and damned to hell, where 
th-e worm dieth not and the fire is not 
quenched." The letter in reply to Clay is 
addressed to "that great plenipotentiary, the 
renowned secretary of state, the ignoble duel- 
ist, the gambling senator, and the whig can- 
didate for the presidency, Henry Clay." 

Disgusted with his appeals for light from the 
various presidential candidates, the prophet 
resolved to test the feelings of the American 
people by running for the presidency himself. 



l6o NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

**Who shall be our next president?" defiantly 
asked the Times and Seasons of February i, 
1844. "We have our eye on the man; we 
shall notify our friends in due time, and when 
we do we shall take a long pull, a strong pull, 
and a pull altogether." On March i, 1844, 
this intimation was followed by the announce- 
ment, in big type : " For President, General 
Joseph Smith, Nauvoo, Illinois." Later (on 
May 17th) some sort of a national convention 
was got together in Nauvoo, and Joseph put 
in formal nomination before the country. 

As the prophet increased in years and good 
fortune a corresponding elation was percep- 
tible in his manner. In public discourse he 
was easy and complacent, seeming to feel the 
importance of his position ; in private talk he 
was, in general, agreeable, but, if opposed, 
was apt to be loud and truculent. A man 
who on one occasion chanced to be on the 
Mississippi steamboat which the Mormons 
owned and navigated encountered Smith 
among the passengers, and heard his con- 
verse. He afterwards said of him : " In his 
repeated treatment of those who did not 
acknowledge his pretensions, he exemplified 
an assertion of his own, namely, that in order 
to get through the world to the best advan- 
tage, he had learned to browbeat his way." 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. l6l 

Many stories are told concerning his skill and 
invincibility as an athlete. Says the ex-Utah 
Congressional delegate, George Q. Cannon : 
*'On Saturday, the 28th day of January, 1843, 
the prophet played a fine game of ball at 
Nauvoo with his brethren. On Monday, the 
13th day of March, 1843, he met William 
Wall, a most expert wrestler of Ramus, Illinois, 
and had a friendly bout with him. He easily 
conquered Wall, who up to that time had been 
a champion. About the same time he had a 
contest at pulling sticks with Justus A. Morse, 
reputed to be the strongest man in the region. 
The prophet used but one hand and easily 
defeated Morse." His aplomb, under almost 
any circumstances, was astonishing. Thus, 
on being asked by an English traveler which 
of the Trinity had appeared to him on the 
occasion of the first revelation, he at once 
replied : " It was the Father, with the Son 
on his right hand, and he said: *I am the 
Father, and this Being on my right hand is 
my Son, Jesus Christ.'" Again, in preaching 
on one occasion, he made the statement that 
baptism was essential to salvation. " Stop ! " 
cried a Methodist clergyman who was among 
the listeners, "What do you say to the case 
of the penitent thief ? You know our Savior 
said to the thief: 'This day shalt thou be 



l62 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

with me in Paradise,' which shows that he 
could not have been baptized before his 
admission." " How do you know," quickly 
retorted Smith, ''that he wasn't baptized 
before he became a thief ? But," continued 
he, frowning down the merriment which his 
sally had excited, " this is not the true answer. 
In the original Greek the word that has been 
translated paradise means simply a place of 
departed spirits. To that place the penitent 
thief was conveyed, and there doubtlessly he 
received the baptism necessary for his 
admission to the heavenly kingdom." That 
in his relations to the women of Nauvoo there 
was much freedom seems to be established by 
a great variety of proof. Stenhouse, the apos- 
tate Mormon author, writing in 1870, says: 
"There are now probably about a dozen sis- 
ters in Utah who proudly acknowledge them- 
selves to be the wives of Joseph ; and how 
many others there may have been who held 
that relationship no man knoweth." In per- 
son, at this period, Smith had grown fat; he 
displayed a taste for jewelry ; and his glance 
is said to have been furtive and hard to fix. 
But Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, who 
met him shortly before his assassination, says 
that he was a fine looking man, and that ''one 
could not resist the impression that capacity 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 163 

and resource were natural to his stalwart per- 
son." Summing up his career to the time 
when he became a presidential candidate, 
Stenhouse says : " The poor farm laborer 
merges in the preacher ; the preacher becomes 
a translator, a prophet, a seer, a revelator, a 
banker, an editor, a mayor, a lieutenant-gen- 
eral, a candidate for the presidency of the 
world's greatest republic ; and, last of all, 
though not the least difficult of his achieve- 
ments, he becomes the husband of many wives." 
Polygamy was not an avowed institution 
among the Mormons until the Utah period. 
Its origin among them as a practice, and 
also, secretly, as a doctrine, was in the years 
spent in Nauvoo. The steps in its develop- 
ment were substantially as follows : Certain 
elders who were regretting that their union 
with their wives, in whom they had chanced 
to be exceptionally fortunate, would termi- 
nate with the present life, conceived the 
novel idea of being remarried for eternity. 
A ceremony to this end accordingly was 
performed. Thereupon certain other elders, 
whose conjugal relations were not so satis- 
factory, suggested that they be permitted 
to lighten their burden by contracting 
with some of their sisters in the faith, more 
congenial to them than their wives, an alliance 



164 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

actually to be enjoyed only in the world 
to come, but prospectively to be enjoyed 
here. No objection being made to this 
proposal, it was carried out. In the words of 
Joseph Smith, Jr., " spiritual affinities were 
sought after ; the hitherto sacred precincts of 
home were invaded ; less and less restraint 
was exercised ; the lines between virtue and 
license, before sharply drawn, grew more and 
more indistinct. Spiritual companionship for 
the world to come, deriving its sanction from 
an earthly priesthood, might (it was thought) 
under the same sanction, be antedated and 
put to actual test here ; .... a wife in fact 
was supplemented by one in spirit who in 
easy transition became one in fact also. 

Some examples of the working of this 
doctrine of plurality among the Saints are 
given by Mrs. Emily M. Austin. Mrs. Austin 
was a respectable woman who joined the 
Mormons before their removal to Missouri. 
She afterwards lived much in Nauvoo, taught 
school there, and became well known. She 
did not go to Utah, and only recently 
has died. She has left a small book 
(comparatively scarce) entitled " Life Among 
the Mormons," in which she speaks from a 
knowledge personal and direct. *'A note 
was sent to me [one day]," she says in 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 165 

this book, " desiring my attendance at a 
wedding at Deacon Lovey's. I at once be- 
gan to question who it could be. There was 
no one in Deacon Lovey's family who was old 
enough to marry, thought I. However, I 
attended at the hour appointed, and when the 
parties advanced, it [sic] was Deacon Lovey 
himself, leading an old maid by the name of 
Elmyra Mack. I was more astonished now 
than I ever was. There sat his other wife 
looking perfectly happy. The ceremony was 
said, after which a lively time ensued, and all 
seemed joyous and full of merriment." Else- 
where in her book she says : " [On one occa- 
sion], while I stopped a few moments in con- 
versation with Mrs. S , her husband rode 

up in a splendid carriage and asked if I would 
not ride, as he was going on business the way 
I was to return. I accepted the offer, and on 
our way he asked if I had tried to inform 
myself of the great work which was enjoined 
upon us as God's children ? I told him I 
knew of nothing but to serve God with an 
honest and upright heart. 'This is not all,' 
he said ; ' God's work is progressive, ever on- 
ward. As his children grow more numerous 
their wants increase. He does for us all we 
wish or desire, if we trust in Him. He has 
promised us all things, if we live faithful to 



I 66 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

Him. And now, since these promises are left 
us for our benefit, why not accept?' 'Accept 
what?' I asked. 'Accept and obey God's 
command,' he replied, 'which He has given 
through His servant Joseph ; that is, a man 
can have all the wives he can get, if he marries 
them for time and eternity ; that is, if he takes 
care of them in time, they will also be his in 
eternity ; for the glory of man is the woman ; 
the more women he has the more glory will 
crown him in heaven. And now, if when you 
consider this properly, you think it better to 
have one who will provide for and protect you, 
let me know your mind, and all will be 
well.'" 

But although the prophet (to recur to Sten- 
house's graphic phrase), in addition to being 
a candidate for the presidency, had achieved 
the glory of becoming the husband of many 
wives, foes were at work against him ; foes 
among the Saints and foes among the gentiles. 
Trouble, the result of rivalry, long since had 
broken out between him and his lieutenant 
John C. Bennett, and Bennett had gone to 
the East. Certain influential persons (among 
them William Law, Wilson Law, and 
Dr. R. D. Foster) had been cut off from 
the church, and were bitterly hostile. 
Among the gentiles a long-brewing fear 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. I 67 

and dislike of the Mormons, engendered 
by political and other causes, was manifesting 
itself. Into the midst of all this came, as a 
spark to a magazine of powder, the Expositor 
incident of June 7th, 1845. The Laws and 
others had established a newspaper called 
the Nauvoo Expositor. It professed belief in 
the Mormon doctrines, but repudiated the 
claims of Smith. As a vulnerable point in 
Smith's character, it assailed his chastity. 
Thereupon the excitement in Nauvoo was 
tremendous. The city council, under the 
lead of the prophet, met and, after much 
inflammatory talk, voted the Expositor and its 
ofhce a public nuisance and ordered them 
abated. This order not being complied with 
by the proprietors, the press and type of the 
paper were pitched into the street by the 
prophet's deputies and destroyed. Following 
upon this, came the arrest of Smith and his 
brother Hyrum by a constable of the county, 
and their prompt release under a writ of 
habeas corpus issued by the Nauvoo municipal 
council. Such a direct defiance of the author- 
ity of the state by the Mormons, as was the 
delivery under this writ, roused great resent- 
ment among the gentiles. "Citizens!" ex- 
claimed the Warsaw Signal, anent the occur- 
rence, "arise, one and all ! . . . We have no 



I 68 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

time for comment : every man will make his 
own. Let it be made with powder and ball !" 
Governor Ford was appealed to. He came 
to Carthage, the county seat, made a show of 
military force, and the two Smiths, after some 
negotiations, surrendered themselves into the 
Governor's hands and were lodged in the 
Carthage jail. Meanwhile armed bands were 
congregating at several points in anticipation 
of orders to attack Nauvoo. The Mormon 
leaders having given themselves up, these 
bands were now directed by the governor to 
disperse. Many of them did so ; others were 
not thus to be cheated of their prey. On 
June 27th, in the governor's absence at 
Nauvoo whither he had gone to make an 
address to the citizens, a mob collected from 
the direction of Warsaw. Rolling into Carth- 
age, it made straight for the jail, put aside 
the feeble guard it found there, and rushed 
towards the room on the upper floor in which 
were confined Joseph and Hyrum Smith. 
They heard the mob coming and threw their 
bodies against the door to bar ingress. Several 
shots were fired by the mob through the door 
panels ; the door itself was then burst open 
and more shots fired. One of them killed 
Hyrum Smith. The prophet was not so 
easily disposed of. He stood by the door 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 69 

jamb and returned the fire. He fired four 
shots and at each a man went down. Then, 
wounded and bewildered, he rushed to a 
window in the room which had been opened 
to admit the soft June air, and half leaped, 
half fell, into the yard below. Here, while 
gathering himself into a sitting posture 
against the well curb, a squad of his old 
enemies, the Missourians, which was standing 
by, discharged their pieces at him and he 
dropped back dead. 

in. 

The death of Joseph Smith was the begin- 
ning of the end of Mormonism in Nauvoo. 
He was succeeded, it is true, by Brigham 
Young, but the glory of Zion was grown dim. 
The times were troubled. In the church 
there were dissensions ; in both the church and 
the town there was lawlessness. Horse steal- 
ing, grave robbing, and other forms of theft 
were frequently practiced. So fearful were 
the family of Joseph that the remains of the 
prophet and his brother would be stolen, 
if the place of their burial were knotvn, that 
a deception was practiced at the funeral. The 
caskets, when borne from the Mansion House, 
did not contain the dead. In the room of 
the bodies bags of sand had been put ; and 



1 70 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

the caskets thus filled were deposited in a 
double vault, which had been excavated in 
the hill side some two hundred feet south of 
the Temple. This vault was encased by stone 
walls and closed by iron doors. The bodies 
themselves were secretly buried at night by 
Emma Smith, the prophet's wife. Where they 
were buried no one but she and her sons 
knew then ; and no one but the two sons who 
survive her, Joseph and Alexander, know now. 
Besides theft, offenses against society in 
and about Nauvoo of a much darker sort 
marked the year immediately following the 
prophet's death. There were bold robberies 
and still bolder assassinations. From the 
time of the trouble in Missouri a secret organ- 
ization was thought to have existed among 
the Saints, called the Sons of Dan or Danites. 
Certain early Mormon apostates had made 
oath, before a Congressional investigating 
committee, to the existence of such a society. 
Its object, they had said, was to drive out dis- 
senters from the church. If any, on being 
notified to go, refused, they were secretly put 
to death. Nehemiah Odell, who had been 
examined before the Congressional com- 
mittee, had said that he was present on 
one occasion during the war with the Missou- 
rians, when a company of the Danites received 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 171 

the following somewhat remarkable command 
from their Captain ; " In the name of Laza- 
rus, God, and the Lamb, fire ! Danites." 

To the Mormons — especially as represented 
in the Danite Band — it has been the habit to 
ascribe the perpetration of the thefts, rob- 
beries, and murders which were now plaguing 
the vicinity of Nauvoo. That any such organ- 
ization as this was at all active, or even ex- 
isted, among the Mormons during the Nauvoo 
period, there is virtually no proof. That such 
an organization had existed, and that it was 
revived in Utah, is a different proposition. 
The most reasonable explanation of the Nau- 
voo outrages would seem to be that they 
came of general border lawlessness. The 
suspicion which the Saints and gentiles had 
come to entertain of each other gave the Mis- 
sissippi river outlaw bands an excellent chance 
to make use of Nauvoo as a place of refuge. 
By professing Mormon views, they at once, 
when charged with misdemeanors or crimes, 
were able to raise in the minds of the Saints 
a presumption that they were being maligned 
and persecuted; hence they were given pro- 
tection. But be the explanation what it may, 
the offenses were committed and the Mor- 
mons held responsible for them. So common 
a practice had horse stealing become that the 



172 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

river crossing between Nauvoo and Montrose 
was widely known as the "thieves' ferry." It 
had even a more sinister reputation : tales 
were told of how the Danites, mounted on 
fleet horses, would seize men against whom 
death had been decreed by their organization, 
strap them behind them, be ferried to the 
centre of the stream, and there cut out the 
entrails of their victims and sink their bodies 
in the water. People on both sides of the 
Mississippi lived in constant dread, hardly 
daring to unbar their doors after nightfall. 

In May, 1845, ^ German family in Lee 
county, Iowa, (the county in which is the vil- 
lage of Montrose) was murdered in a manner 
exceptionally brutal. The murderers, the 
Hodge brothers, were tracked to Nauvoo by 
Edward Bonney, and discovered to be liv- 
ing in a remote part of the town. Their 
house was surrounded, they were captured, 
and, after a trial and conviction, hanged 
Bonney was a remarkable character. He kept 
a livery stable in Montrose, traveled much on 
the river, and knew many of the members of 
the outlaw bands. He has been charged with 
having been an outlaw himself, but upon no 
satisfactory evidence. On the contrary, he 
was the means of bringing to justice some of 
the most noted desperadoes of the river coun- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 73 

try. During the trial of the Hodges great 
efforts were made by one of their family to 
enlist the interest of Brigham Young in their 
behalf, but without result. On another occa- 
sion, it is said, an attempt was made in ad- 
vance by the outlaws to gain the countenance 
of Brigham for a criminal project. It was 
proposed (so the story goes) by a certain in- 
fluential Saint of Nauvoo quietly to rob the 
chest of a merchant of that town. But the 
merchant chanced also to be a Saint. Now, 
while Saint number one had no conscientious 
scruples against robbery in general, he had 
qualms as to the propriety of one Saint rob- 
bing another. He therefore sought guidance 
from the head of the church. What Brig- 
ham's council on this delicate question was 
is not known ; but when he who sought it 
would have carried into effect his original de- 
sign, he found Saint number two, gun in 
hand, serenely awaiting him. 

One of the most celebrated cases of mur- 
der attributed to the Mormons was that of 
Colonel George Davenport. Colonel Daven- 
port was by birth an Englishman, but, coming 
to America, had served this country as a sol- 
dier in the war of 1812. He had seen many 
adventures both by land and water, and in 
Indian times had been a highly esteemed 



' 



174 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

friend of the old chief Black Hawk. He now 
(1845) was living in a substantial, and, for 
the times, elegant mansion on the island of 
Rock Island in the Mississippi river, one hun- 
dred and twenty miles above Nauvoo. About 
his dwelling towered lofty old oaks ; while 
before it, along the margin of a beautiful 
greensward, hastened the great stream. On 
the fourth of July, 1845, Colonel Davenport 
was sitting in his parlor reading. His family 
were away at a picnic gathering. Hearing a 
slight noise at the rear of the house, he 
stepped into the hall to investigate its cause. 
Here he was confronted by three men. One 
of the three discharged a pistol at him, the 
ball taking effect in his thigh. He was then 
seized, thrown down, bound with strips of 
hickory bark, and blindfolded. Next he was 
dragged by his collar and long gray hair up 
the broad stairway of his mansion to an upper 
room containing a closet in which, in an iron 
safe, were his money and valuables. This safe 
the robbers forced him to open. After secur- 
ing its contents, chiefly money, they placed 
their victim, now weak from loss of blood, on 
a bed there was in the room, and demanded 
more money. The Colonel pointed to a 
drawer in his dressing table. The robbers 
opened a wrong one by mistake, and, think- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 75 

ing they had been deceived, choked their vic- 
tim till he fainted. This they did twice, 
reviving him each time by forcing water into 
his mouth and by dashing it in his face. On 
his fainting a third time, they fled. Colonel 
Davenport died from the effect of his wounds 
on the day following the robbery. To-day, 
many years after this tragedy and after the 
Federal Government has purchased Rock 
Island and made it the site of a great arsenal, 
the mansion of Colonel Davenport stands 
solitary and abandoned on the banks of the 
Mississippi. For a long time the floor of the 
hall, the steps of the stair-case, and the floor 
of the room in which the Colonel died, all 
deeply blood-stained, were shown to travelers. 
The plastering from the walls and ceiling has 
now so fallen upon and covered both steps 
and floors that any traces of blood, if they 
exist, are hidden from sight. But to con- 
tinue : The perpetrators of this robbery 
and murder were ferreted out by Bonney, 
after some detective work of which the pur- 
suers of Jean Valjean would not have been 
ashamed, and, with one exception, brought 
to trial. One of them — Birch — turned state's 
evidence and made a confession. In this 
confession, among other things, he said : 
" The first council for arranging the robbery 



176 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

of Colonel Davenport was held in Joseph 
Smith's old council chamber in Nauvoo." 

The effect of occurrences such as have just 
been described, and of statements like this one 
by Birch, upon the already prejudiced and 
excited minds of the anti-Mormons or gentiles, 
can well be imagined. On the ist of October, 
1845, ^ convention of delegates from nine of 
the counties adjacent to Hancock county (the 
one in which Nauvoo is situated) assembled 
at Carthage and passed a resolution that ** it 
is now too late to attempt a settlement of the 
present difhculties upon any other basis than 
that of the removal of the Mormons from the 
State." On the same day a written promise 
that the Mormons would leave the state, as 
fast as they could sell their property and 
make other necessary arrangements, was 
signed by Brigham Young and put in the 
hands of a committee appointed by Governor 
Ford to confer with the Mormon leaders. 
Among the members of this committee was 
Stephen A. Douglas. Preparations for de- 
parture by the Mormons were rapidly pushed 
forward. On November 15th, the Times and 
Seasons made announcement that fifteen or 
twenty thousand persons were preparing for 
exodus in the coming spring. It also an- 
nounced that the number of families repre- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 77 

sented in this aggregate of persons was thirty- 
two hundred and eighty-five, and that for 
their transportation there were fifteen hundred 
and eight wagons on hand and eighteen hun- 
dred and ninety-two in process of manufac- 
ture. The concluding words of the announce- 
ment (aimed at the gentiles) were: "O! 
Generation of Vipers!" On January 20, 1846, 
a circular to the Saints was issued by the 
High Council. It stated that early in March 
a company of pioneers would be sent West to 
find some fertile valley near the Rocky moun- 
tains where crops could be planted and cabins 
built for the sustenance and protection of the 
whole body of the Mormon people until a 
place of permanent abiding should be deter- 
mined upon. The circular stated further, 
that should trouble arise with any foreign 
power over the Oregon question, the Mor- 
mons, despite their wrongs which they keenly 
felt, would at least render the American gov- 
ernment services as great as those on a cer- 
tain occasion rendered by a conscientious 
Quaker to the crew of a merchant ship 
attacked by pirates. The pirates were in the 
act of boarding when one of their number fell 
into the water. As he was fast ascending the 
side of the merchantman, by means of a rope 
which was hanging over, he chanced to be 



178 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

spied by the conscientious Quaker. " Friend," 
said the Quaker, *' if thee wants that piece of 
rope, I will help thee to it," and severed it 
with his jack-knife. " Much of our property," 
continued the circular, " will be left in the 
hands of competent agents for sale, at a low 
rate, for teams, for goods, and for cash. The 
funds arising from the sale of property will be 
applied to the removal, from time to time, of 
families ; and it now remains to be proved 
whether those of our families and friends who 
are necessarily left behind for a season shall 
be mobbed and driven away by force." The 
circular emphatically denied that the Mormons 
ever had cut out the bowels of any person or 
fed him to the cat-fish. The programme of 
departure, as laid down in the circular, was 
not adhered to as to the time of starting, for 
the first company of Exiles crossed the Mis- 
sissippi river on the ice on February 5th. 
During the month twelve hundred wagons 
crossed. By the middle of May sixteen thou- 
sand persons had passed into Iowa and were 
filing towards the Missouri at a point where 
now is the city of Council Bluffs. 

But meanwhile work upon the Temple had 
not been suspended. Its exterior for some 
time had been finished, but within much still 
remained to be done. As early as October 5, 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 79 

1845, th^ windows were in, also temporary 
floors, seats, and pulpits ; and a congregation 
of some five thousand had been present at an 
informal service. By the last of January, 

1846, the Temple was as nearly completed as 
it ever became. At either end of the main 
assembly room, which occupied the first floor, 
were the pulpits for the four priesthoods, 
one above another according to rank ; the 
lowest for the President of the Elders and 
his two counsellors ; the next for the Presi- 
dent of the High Priesthood and his two 
counsellors ; the third for the President of the 
Melchisedeck (Aaronic) Priesthood and his 
two counsellors ; the fourth and highest, for 
the President of the whole church and his two 
counsellors. The last pulpit the Mormons 
held in the profoundest reverence as a repre- 
sentation of Moses' seat into which used to 
crowd the Scribes and Pharisees. Beneath the 
main assembly room was the basement and in 
it the great Baptismal- fount — a tank twenty 
feet square, supported upon twelve stone oxen, 
and ascended by a flight of steps. Above the 
main assembly room was an upper assem- 
bly room, and beneath and above this, in the 
recesses of the structure, were some small ofifice 
rooms. There was also an attic story contain- 
ing a suite of apartments for the use of the 



l8o NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

President in the ordinances of washings, an- 
nointings, and prayer. Of these different 
rooms none were wholly finished except per- 
haps the main assembly room. In the second 
story the floor was not even laid. Surround- 
ing the Temple square a trench had been dug, 
some six feet wide and deep, which was to have 
been filled with masonry as a base for a heavy 
iron fence. The massive walls of the Temple 
with their two tiers of round windows, and the 
environing trench which had been excavated, 
were but confirmatory proof to the gentiles of 
the sinister purposes of the Mormons. One 
suspicious gentile thought the Temple imper- 
vious to the heaviest artillery ; its round win- 
dows port holes ; and the trench a foundation 
step in the erection of a massive stone out- 
work ten feet high. It was hatred by the 
gentiles that forced the Mormon artisan, as he 
wrought at his task during the time of the 
Exodus, (for the Temple must be completed 
according to the command of the Lord) to 
place weapons at his side, while watch and 
ward were kept from the Temple roof. 

That the Temple ever was dedicated with 
any other ceremony than that of a prayer by 
Brigham Young on the occasion of the meet- 
ing in it of the five thousand in October, 1845, 
there is no cause to believe. But a pictur- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. l8l 

esque story of a later dedication, which has been 
invented, ought not to be lost. According to 
this tale, the Temple was consecrated at high 
noon under the bright sunshine of May. From 
the rivier Des Moines, from the land of the 
Sauks and Foxes, and from near the Missouri, 
the elders of the church returned to Nauvoo 
in disguise. Once within the sacred enclosure 
of the Temple, their disguises quickly were 
thrown aside and they stood forth in all the 
splendor of sacerdotal vestments. The great 
apartments glowed with the typical emblems 
of sun, moon, and stars. The ceremonies 
were protracted through the night and until 
the dawning of the next day. Then the robes 
were laid aside, the decorations removed, and 
the company separated as mysteriously as it 
had come. The foundation which exists for 
this tale (and for what tale does not some foun- 
dation exist ?) is, according to Joseph Smith, 
Jr., the fact that, during the Exodus, secret 
revels were held in the Temple of such a sort 
as would have brought the blush of shame even 
to those who in ancient times made the House 
of God at Jerusalem a den of thieves. As 
already has been stated, some sixteen thousand 
Mormons had crossed the Mississippi river into 
Iowa by the middle of May, 1845. The remain- 
der continued to leave as fast as they could sell 



152 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

their effects and buy teams and wagons. But 
the impatience of the gentiles was not to be 
restrained. Under the guise of a sheriff's posse 
to enforce the execution of a writ, a battalion 
of some six or eight hundred men mustered 
in the latter days of August, and, early in 
September, took up its march for Nauvoo. 
This move was not unexpected by the Mor- 
mons, and on September 9th, their sentries 
on the roof of the Temple descried the 
advancing troops. On September 12th, 
Brockman, the officer commanding the bat- 
talion, sent a flag of truce into the town and 
demanded its surrender. The demand was 
refused and a skirmish of about an hour's 
duration occurred between the invading force 
and such of the Mormons as had not yet 
crossed the river. Each side was provided 
with a few light pieces of field artillery, and 
by those in the hands of the invaders some 
damage was done to buildings. The contest 
was brought to an end through the intervention 
of a deputation of citizens from Ouincy, 111., 
and, on September i6th, the Mormons signed 
an agreement to leave the state or disperse with- 
out delay. They also agreed that in the mean- 
while the gentiles should take possession of 
the town. In less than twenty-four hours the 
whole Mormon population, now reduced to 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 83 

about six hundred persons, had gained the 
Iowa shore. A few, however, were unable to 
get away, and upon them fell the sore dis- 
pleasure of the invaders. This was manifested 
for the most part by the administration of a 
ducking in the river. Sometimes the ducking 
was conducted as a baptism ; the victim being 
first thrown on his back, with the words : "By 
the holy saints I baptize you ;" then on his 
face, with the further words : "The command- 
ments must be fulfilled." Limp and dripping 
he was then sent to the Iowa shore on a flatboat 
with the injunction ringing in his ears not to 
come back if he valued his life. Huddled 
together on the flat ground opposite Nauvoo, 
poorly sheltered, and with meager food, the 
Mormons presented a sight truly pitiable. 
Many were sick ; all were more or less in dis- 
tress. Nine births took place the first night 
of the encampment. Moreover, that there 
might be no lack in the misery of the situa- 
tion, a thunder storm broke and the rain 
poured steadily down. 

Her people in exile, the city of Joseph was 
indeed a place of desolation. Thomas L. 
Kane, of Philadelphia, a brother to Dr. Elisha 
Kane, the Arctic explorer, chanced to come 
there a few days after the evacuation, and 
has left a vivid narrative of what he saw. " I 



184 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

procured a skiff," he writes, "and rowing 
across the river, landed at the chief wharf of 
the city. No one met me there. I looked 
and saw no one. I could hear no one move ; 
though the quiet everywhere was such that I 
heard the flies buzz and the water ripples 
break against the shallows of the beach. I 
walked through the solitary streets. The 
town lay as in a dream, under some deaden- 
ing spell of loneliness, from which I almost 
feared to wake it." .... *' I went into empty 
workshops and smithies. The spinner's wheel 
was idle ; the carpenter had gone from his 
workbench. Fresh bark was in the tanner's 
vat; and the fresh chopped light wood stood 
piled against the baker's oven. The smith's 
forge was cold ; but his coal heap and ladling 
pool and crooked water horn were all there 
as if he had just gone off for a holiday." 

But what concerning the sixteen thousand 
of the Saints, who, months before this, had 
begun their march over the prairies of Iowa ? 
At their last meeting in council in Nauvoo, 
Elder George A. Smith' is said to have re- 
marked : "If there is no God in Israel, we 
are a sucked-in set of fellows ; but I am going 

I George A. Smith became in Utah Brigadier-General 
of the Mormon militia and first counselor to Brigham Young. 
He it was to whom Young probably sent the orders which 
caused the Mountain Meadow massacre. 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 85 

to take my family and cross the river, and 
the Lord will open the way." When they set 
out, the weather was inclement and cold. 
They advanced in the teeth of northwest 
winds, which swept with great fury across the 
naked prairies. Around them lay the with- 
ered grass, and much of the time only leaden 
skies were seen above. The fires of the pre- 
ceding autumn had destroyed the dry wood 
along the streams, and in the dearth of fuel it 
was with extreme difficulty that they kept 
from freezing. Many were afflicted with 
catarrh and rheumatism. As the spring came 
on, heavy rains fell, and the black soil of the 
prairie was converted into bog. Through it 
waded and floundered men, women, children, 
oxen, and horses. A mile or two a day was 
sometimes all that could be accomplished. 
Then a swollen stream would be encountered, 
and the whole expedition would be delayed 
for a fortnight. Deaths were frequent. The 
burials were infinitely pathetic. From a log, 
some eight or nine feet long, the bark 
would be stripped in half cylinders. The 
body then would be placed between and 
the whole laid in a shallow trench. After this 
there would be a prayer, a hymn, a futile 
attempt permanently to mark the spot where 
the loved one had been left, and a resolute 



1 86 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET, 

setting of the face again to the westward. On 
April 27th, the Mormon hosts reached a point 
in what is now Decatur county, Iowa, which 
they named Garden Grove. Here, at the call 
of the bugle, all hands assembled, and an or- 
ganization was effected for the purpose of 
putting lands in cultivation and thus providing 
means of subsistence for the further stages of 
the journey. Soon hundreds were at work, 
felling trees, splitting rails, making fences, 
cutting logs for houses, building bridges, dig- 
ging wells, and making plows. A strong de- 
tachment was then separated from the main 
column to occupy the new settlement. On 
June 17th, at a point in what is now Union 
county, Iowa, which the Mormons called Mt. 
Pisgah, another settlement was made. A little 
later and the main column was at the Missouri, 
on the extreme limit of Iowa Territory, near 
where now is located the city of Council 
Bluffs. 

While on the march, the Mormons still had 
continued to be an object of mingled curiosity 
and fear to the gentiles. Tales concerning 
them had been freely invented. One of these 
was that, when in the Sauk and Fox coun- 
try, a party of the Saints, clad in spangled 
crimson robes and headed by an elder in 
black velvet and silver, had been seen teach- 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 187 

ing a Jewish pow-wow to the medicine men. 
Another tale was that the Mormons were go- 
ing about among the lowas in short frocks of 
buffalo robe, in imitation of John the Baptist, 
teaching baptism and the kingdom of Heaven. 
Still another tale was that an elder, with long 
white beard, and who spoke the Indian lan- 
guage, because he had the gift of tongues, was 
distributing powder and whiskey to the Yank- 
ton Sioux. Finally it was darkly whispered 
that the Saints were in the pay of the British 
government, and were carrying to the Potta- 
wattomies scarlet uniforms and a battery of 
twelve brass field pieces. 

The hills on the Iowa shore of the Missouri, 
where the Mormons stopped, are bold and 
high, and from Indian times have been 
called the council bluffs. On these hills, and 
on the level land at their base, were pitched 
the white tents and drawn up the white-topped 
wagons of the exiles. It was full summer. 
Herd boys tended sheep, cows, and oxen 
on the slopes. At the river margin, women 
washed the soiled garments of their families. 
Smoke rose high into the air from a thousand 
camp fires. The scene was varied and filled 
with animation. To make it even more so, 
the Pottawattomie Indians sent a deputation, 
under their distinguished Chief Pied Riche, 



I 88 NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 

to confer with the Mormons, and a council 
was held. Each party represented either had 
suffered, or believed it had suffered, wrong at 
the hands of the government, and this created 
a strong bond of sympathy. Pied Riche 
himself was a savage of some pretensions to- 
wards higher things. He spoke French with 
ease. His daughter. Mademoiselle Fanny, 
played on the guitar, and showed her sense of 
the requirements of hospitality by entertain- 
ing some of the maidens among the Mormons 
at a coffee supper. 

Soon after the Mormons reached the Mis- 
souri, they were waited upon by Captain 
Allen, of the First U. S. Dragoons, for the 
purpose of enlisting from their numbers 
several companies for the Mexican war. 
"You shall have a battalion at once," Brig- 
ham Young is reported to have said, "even 
if it be a class of our elders." So the com- 
panies were raised, and preparations made 
for the march against Mexico. A farewell 
ball was given. It was held under a great ar- 
bor or bower made from poles and branches. 
The Mormon belles, as described by Sten- 
house, were sweet and clean in white [stock- 
ings, bright petticoats, starched collars and 
chemisettes. The first dance was a double 
cotillion of elders and their partners. This 



NAUVOO AND THE PROPHET. 1 89 

was followed by French fours, Copenhagen jigs, 
and Virginia reels. The music was from vio- 
lins, horns, sleigh-bells and tambourines. 
When the frolic was over, the military recruits 
were called forward and blessed by the au- 
thorities of the church, and on the next day 
were fairly off for the war. 

The main body of the Mormons (as already 
has been stated) remained in the camp on 
the river bluffs till the spring of 1847. They 
then resumed their momentous journey west- 
ward into the wilderness. And as they went, 
they sang : 

"The time of winter now is o'er, 
There's verdure on the plain ; 
We leave our sheltering roofs once more, 
And to our tents again. 

Chorus. 
O, camp of Israel, onward move ; 

O, Jacob, rise and sing ; 
Ye saints, the world's salvation prove ; 

All hail to Zion's King !" 



THE FIRST MEETING WITH THE 
DAHKOTAHS 



THE FIRST MEETING WITH THE 
DAHKOTAHS. 



" Very fierce are the Dahkotahs." — Longfellow. 



For an unknown period of time before the 
year 1600, the Dahkotah, or as they are now 
generally called, the Sioux, Nation of Indians, 
ranged that part of the continent of North 
America extending from the Rocky moun- 
tains to Lake Superior and the Mississippi 
river, and from what are now the British 
Provinces southward to about the parallel of 
forty-two degrees north latitude. They were 
wise in council and fierce in war. In these 
respects they resembled the Iroquois. Indeed 
they were called by the Jesuit missionaries 
sent among them the Iroquois of the West. 
The Relation of 167 1-2 says : " These quar- 
ters of the North [West] have their Iroquois 
as well as those of the South [East] ; who 
make themselves dreaded by all their neigh- 
bors. Our Ouatouacs [Ottawas], and Hurons 
had up to the present time kept up a kind of 
peace with them ; but affairs having become 
embroiled, and some murders even having 

193 



194 FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 

been committed on both sides, our savages 
had reason to apprehend that the storm would 
burst upon them, and judged that it was safer 
for them to leave the place." Thomas G. 
Anderson, who figured on the side of the 
British at the taking of Fort Shelby, Prairie 
du Chien, in 1813, and who had been an old 
trapper among the Sioux, thus wrote in his 
journal concerning these Indians as late as 
the beginning of the present century. " I 
must do the Sioux the justice to say that on 
the whole they are the most cleanly, have the 
best regulations as a tribe, . . . are the 
swiftest pedestrians, best bow and arrow men, 
the most enormous eaters at their feasts, 
yet can abstain longer without food, than 
any of the [other] numerous tribes I have 
met." 

The name Dahkotah means '* friendly " or 
confederated tribes, and is the only name by 
which this people are known to themselves. 
Their name Sioux is a modification of the 
final syllables of the Ojibway word Nadowai- 
siwug. Nadowaisiwug literally means *' like 
unto the adders," and is the name by which 
the Iroquois always have been known to the 
Ojibways. It was the early French mission- 
aries and traders who first abbreviated it to 
siwug and then modified siwug to sioug and 



I 



FIKST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 1 95 

sioux. The elimination by the French of the 
sound for which the English letter w stands 
was most natural, for this sound is not repre- 
sented in the French alphabet. Charlevoix 
writes in his admirable history: "The name 
Scioux that we give to these Indians is en- 
tirely of our making, or rather it is but the 
last two syllables of the name Nadouessioux, 
as many nations call them." 

The origin of the Dahkotahs, like that of 
the other nations of Indians in North Amer- 
ica, is unknown. They perhaps came into 
Minnesota from the region north of Lake 
Superior where they had had conflicts with 
the Esquimaux. The first attempt to classify 
them was made by Le Sueur in 1700. He 
discriminated them into Scioux of the East 
and Scioux of the West. Later attempts have 
resulted in classifying them in three divisions. 
The first division is the Issati, Isanyati, or 
Issanti, Sioux — those who ranged to the 
Eastward of the Mississippi river. The name 
Issanti seems to have been derived from Isan- 
tamade or Knife Lake, one of the Mille Lacs, 
Minnesota, near which this branch once lived. 
The second grand division of the Dahkotahs 
is the Ihanktonwan, (pronounced E-hawnk- 
twawn) or Yankton ; this name means " Vil- 
lage at the End." The Yanktons lived west 



196 FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 

of the Issanti, ranging to the Missouri river. 
The third division is the Tee-twaun or Tin- 
tonwan. This name means ''Village in the 
prairie." The Tintonwans ranged from the 
Missouri river to the Rocky mountains, and 
were the fiercest and most warlike of their 
nation. 

At different times from 161 5 to 1634, the 
Chevalier, Samuel de Champlain, Governor of 
New France, had heard it said that four hun- 
dred leagues to the West of Quebec there 
dwelt a people that formerly had lived near a 
distant sea, and who on that account were 
called the Tribe of the Men of the Sea. It 
was told, moreover, that this Tribe of the Sea 
held intercourse withapeoplelivingstill farther 
West who reached them by crossing a vast 
expanse of water in large canoes made of 
wood, instead of bark, and who, because of 
their shaved heads, their beardless chins, and 
their strange costumes, might perhaps be the 
Tartars or Chinese. Stimulated by a wish to 
know if Tartary or China could be reached 
merely by crossing the American Continent, 
Champlain employed Jean Nicolet, a clerk 
and interpreter of the Company of the Hun- 
dred Associates, to undertake a journey of 
discovery. Nicolet set out on the first of 
July, 1634. He at length reached the Hurons 



FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 1 97 

who lived near the entrance to Lake Superior. 
His journey thence is best described in the 
words of the Jesuit Relation of 1643. "He 
embarked from the territory of the Hurons 
with seven savages ; when they ar- 
rived there, [the country of the Men of the 
Sea], they drove two sticks into the ground 
and hung presents upon them to prevent the 
people from taking them for enemies and 
murdering them. At a distance of two days 
journey from this tribe, he [had] sent one of 
his savages to carry them the news of peace 
which was well received, especially when they 
heard it was a European who brought the 
message. They dispatched several young 
men to go to meet the manitou, that is, the 
wonderful man ; they come, they escort him., 
they carry all his baggage. He was clothed 
in a large garment of China damask strewn 
with flowers and birds of various colors. As 
soon as he came in sight, all the women and 
children fled, seeing a man carry thunder in 
both hands. They called thus the two pistols 
he was holding. The news of his coming- 
spread immediately to the surrounding places 
— and four or five thousand men assembled. 
Each of the chiefs gave him a banquet, and at 
one of them at least one hundred and twenty 
beavers were served." 



198 FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 

This country of the Men of the Sea into 
which Nicolet had come, was the country of 
the Winnebago Indians which lay south of 
Green Bay in what is now the State of Wis- 
consin. The people to the west of the Men 
of the Sea, who were supposed by Nicolet to 
be Asiatics, and for whose edification he had 
donned his robe of yellow damask, he neither 
met nor saw. They were the Dahkotahs — 
the denizens of the wilderness beyond the 
Mississippi. 

The first men of European extraction to 
meet any of the Dahkotah nation, and to leave 
a record of the fact, were Pierre d'Esprit, 
Sieur Radisson and his brother-in-law, Me- 
dard Chouart, Sieur Groseilliers. These men 
had formed a partnership "to travel and 
see countreys," as Radisson expressed it. In 
this occupation they spent the years from 
1658 to 1685. Radisson kept a journal of 
their travels from 1658 to 1664. In 1665 he 
and his companion were in London court- 
ing the favor of King Charles II. As one 
means of securing it, Radisson copied out 
this journal and took pains to have the copy 
put into the King's hands. Through this 
channel Radisson's narrative finally came 
into the possession of the diarist and Secre- 
tary of the Admiralty, Samuel Pepys. In 



FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. I99 

1703, Pepys' manuscripts were scattered and 
Radisson's narrative was obtained by the col- 
lector Richard Rawlinson. From him it 
drifted into the Bodleian library where it now 
is. But to resume. In 1659, the Sieurs 
Radisson and Groseilliers visited the town 
of the Mascoutins, situated on Fox river, 
thirty-seven miles from Green Bay. The 
Mascoutins ''told us," says Radisson, " of a 
nation called Nadoneceronon wch is very 
strong wth whom they weare in warres." 
These Nadoneceronons were in fact the Dah- 
kotahs — the people spoken of in 1689 by 
Perrot as Nadouesioux, and in 1767 by Car- 
ver as Naudawises ; in other words, the Sioux. 
Our travelers, however, did not come in 
actual contact with the Dahkotahs or Sioux 
till 1662. In that year they crossed the Mis- 
sissippi and ascended into the Mille Lacs 
region of what is now the State of Minne- 
sota. While here, writes Radisson, " there 
came 2 men from a strange country, who had 
a dogg. These men were Nadoneseronons. 
They were so much respected that nobody 
durst not offend them, being that we were 
upon their land wth their leave." Some two 
months later than this the Dahkotahs sent a 
deputation of eight of their young men to 
visit Radisson and his party and convey to 



200 FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 

them assurances of friendship. The ambas- 
sadors brought with them a present of skins 
of the buffalo and beaver, and in these the 
travelers at once arrayed themselves. The 
Indians then literally fell upon the necks of 
their new found friends and wept, until, in 
the words of Radisson, " we weare wetted by 
their tears." They next produced the peace 
pipe, no ordinary tobacco bowl, Radisson 
wishes it understood, for he describes it as 
only brought forth " when there is occasion 
for heaven and earth." And indeed the pipe 
seems to have been of good workmanship. 
The bowl was of red pipe stone, and as large 
as a man's fist. The stem was five feet long 
and an inch in diameter. Attached to the 
stem, near the bowl, was the tail of an eagle, 
spread like a fan, and painted in different 
colors. Along the stem were fastened the 
feathers of ducks and of birds of gay plum- 
age. After an interval of silence, Radisson 
and his companion prepared some squibs 
which they threw into the fire about which 
the party were seated. The explosions that 
ensued caused the Sioux to spring up and 
flee in terror. "We followed them," says 
Radisson, ** to reassure them of their faint- 
ings. We visited them in their apartments 
where they received us all trembling for 



FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 20t 

feare, believing realy by the same meanes 
that we weare the Devils of the Earth." 

About five days after these occurrences 
thirty young Dahkotah braves arrived armed 
with bows and arrows. The arrows were 
pointed with bits of stags' horn. The dress 
of these Indains was scant and their bodies 
were highly colored with paint. On the next 
day came a large band of Dahkotahs. " They 
arrived," says Radisson, " with an incredible 
pomp. This made me think of ye Intrance 
yt ye Polanders did in Paris, saving that they 
had not so many Jewells, but instead of these 
they had so many feathers." First among 
them were young warriors armed with the 
bow and arrow and buckler. The buckler 
was carried on the shoulder and upon it were 
drawn representations of the sun, the moon 
and of wild beasts. The faces of the warriors 
were daubed with paint. Their hair had been 
made to stand erect through the application 
to it of a paste made of grease and red earth, 
after which the ends had been singed off until 
they were even. On the crown of the head 
was the usual scalp lock, to the extremity of 
which depended a few bits of turquoise. Some 
wore attached to the head, with fiendish con- 
trivance, the horns of the buffalo ; others the 
paws of the bear. The ears of many were 



202 FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 

pierced with five large holes from which hung 
coppear trinkets shaped like the half moon 
or the star. All wore highly ornamented 
leggins and moccasins. Besides the bow and 
arrow and buckler, they carried knives eigh- 
teen inches long, ingeniously shaped stone 
hatchets, and wooden clubs. Close on the 
heels of the young men followed "the elders." 
They were clad from head to foot in buffalo 
robes and bore themselves with imperturba- 
ble gravity. Besides the calumet each of 
" the elders" carried a medicine bag in which, 
according to Radisson, " all ye world was 
enclosed." They had not painted their faces, 
but they wore the same head dress as the 
young men. Bringing up the fear of the pro- 
cession came the women laden like mules. 
Indeed, almost hidden from sight, were they, 
under their enormous burdens, the weight of 
which, our narrator naively hopes, **was not 
equivolent to its bignesse." In less than half 
an hour the women had unslung their bundles, 
taken from them the tent skins, and erected 
the teepes. 

A council then convened at which the Dah- 
kotahs, after much talk complimentary to the 
travelers and to the French nation, made 
a present to the former of buffalo and beaver 
skins. They did this by way of courting an 



FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 203 

alliance with the French, their thought being, 
according to Radisson, " that the true means 
to gett the victory was to have a thunder," 
(fire arms) with which the French were well 
supplied. After the council a feast was an- 
nounced. Four beautiful maids, carrying 
bear skins, preceded the travelers to the place 
where the feast had been prepared. One of 
Radisson's party then indulged in some sing- 
ing, after which, says Radisson, " we began our 
teeth to worke." The meal consisted, among 
other things, of wild rice. At its end the trav- 
elers made gifts to their entertainers of "hatch- 
ets," knives, awles, needles, "looking glasses 
made of tine," little bells, ivory combs, and a 
pot of vermilion. A special gift of necklaces 
and bracelets was made to the Indian maidens 
who had served at the dinner. "This last 
gift," says Radisson, " was in generall for all 
ye women to love us and give us to eat when 
we should come to their cottages." The 
Indians expressed their gratification at this 
munificence by shouts of Ho! Ho! Ho! 

The travelers next paid a visit to the nation 
of the Christinos who dwelt a seven days 
journey to the northward of the Mille Lacs. 
They then returned to the Boeuf band of the 
Dahkotahs, with whom they had held the 
council above described. This time, how- 



204 FIRST MEETING WITH DAHKOTAHS. 

ever, they went to the principal village of the 
Boeufs which consisted of permanent, rectan- 
gular lodges like those which the Sacs and 
Foxes afterwards built near the mouth of the 
Rock river in what is now the State of Illi- 
nois. This village, Radisson thinks, con- 
tained a population of seven thousand souls. 
The summering grounds of these Dahkotahs 
were further South — probably near where is 
now located the city of Dubuque in the state 
of Iowa. 

After six weeks spent at the village of the 
Boeufs, Radisson and Groseilliers, taking a 
final and friendly leave of the Dahkotahs, set 
out in the direction of the Sault Ste. Marie. 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNE WAUKON 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

Among the hills and prairies of Northwestern 
Iowa are the three lakes, East Okobogi, West 
Okobogi, and Minnewaukon. Minnewaukon 
or Spirit Water is the largest of the three. It 
is circular in shape, and covers an area of 
twelve square miles. To the east of it the 
country is bare and rolling; to the west are 
low bluffs dotted with groves. In the thought 
of the Indian it was the abode of spirits ; he 
regarded it with superstitious awe, and is said 
never but once to have profaned its surface 
with canoe and paddle. On this one occa- 
sion an Indian maiden, captured in a far land, 
had been rescued by her lover, and with him 
had taken flight across the lake. In blind 
rage her captors cast away prudence and 
launched their canoes in pursuit. Midway in 
the passage a storm arose ; the outraged genii 
of the place appealed to the gods of the wind 
and thunder, and the daring and impious 
band were overwhelmed. East Okobogi 
(okobogi means place of rest) begins at the 
foot of Minnewaukon, from which it is nar- 
rowly separated, and extends southeastwardly 

207 



2o8 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

for about six miles. It is slightly below the 
level of Minnewaukon, and its general ap- 
pearance is that of a broad and tranquil river. 
West Okobogi is the most beautiful lake in 
Iowa. Its waters are as transparent as those 
of Garda ; they have been sounded to a depth 
of perhaps two hundred feet ; objects beneath 
them have been distinguished at a depth of 
fifty feet. Its shores are broken into bold 
capes and headlands, and its beaches are 
broad and hard. It is of a curved or horse- 
shoe shape, and lies directly south of East 
Okobogi. Indeed it is separated from its 
gentle sister on the north only by a slender 
strait. Its direction is first southwestward for 
nearly five miles ; then, in a graceful curve, 
an equal distance to the northward. It was 
called by the Indians Minnetonka or great 
water, to distinguish it from its sister lake. 

To-day these three lakes, like nearly all 
such bodies of water in America, are the 
resort of large numbers of tourists. Forty 
years ago they were solitary and almost un- 
known. The groves of oak and elm along 
their shores were twined and festooned with 
the woodbine, the wild grape vine, and the 
ivy. Herds of shy deer assembled at their 
edge to drink. On the point of some long 
tongue of land the elk bent down his head to 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 209 

the water, while his perfect reflection looked 
up at him from beneath. In the autumn, 
after the leaves on the trees had turned to 
yellow and red, flocks of wild ducks and 
geese, flocks countless in number, that at 
times darkened the air with their plumage, 
came steadily on from the north till the lakes 
lay spread below; then suddenly wheeled and 
descended into them with a mighty splash 
and with many a squawk and flutter. 

At this early time in the history of the 
Northwest, Minnewaukon and its companion 
lakes were yet within the borders of the great 
territory dominated by the Dahkotah or Sioux 
nation of Indians. In general the limits of 
this territory were the river St. Peter's on the 
east, the Rocky Mountains on the west, the 
Canadian possessions on the north, and an 
uncertain line on the south near the parallel 
of forty-five degrees north latitude. Except- 
ing only the Iroquois, the Dahkotahs have 
been the most remarkable people of purely 
Indian characteristics upon our continent. 
Their name Dahkotah (confederated bands) 
is that given to them by themselves ; their 
name Sioux is from Nadesioux, the word used 
to designate them by the early French traders 
and explorers. Nadesioux, however, is not a 
proper noun ; it is merely a Gallicized form of 



2 10 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

the Ojibway word Nadowaisiwug (adders or 
enemies), and was employed by the Ojibways 
as descriptive of the Iroquois as well as of the 
Dahkotahs. 

The first meeting of the Dahkotah Indians 
by white men took place at a spot not so 
remote from this lake region of Iowa. In 
1662 the French travelers, Radisson and 
Groseilliers, held a council with a large com- 
pany of the Dahkotahs near the Mille Lacs, 
in what is now the State of Minnesota.' They 
were even then a famous and dreaded nation. 
Says Radisson, in his quaint, Gallic way : 
*'They were so much respected that nobody 
durst not offend them." In subsequent years 
their tribal organization was studied. They 
were found to be separated into three great 
divisions : the Issanti, (of which the principal 
band was the Meddewakantonwan) the Yank- 
tons, and the Tintonwans. The Issanti ex- 
tended to the east of the Mississippi river. 
It was by them that Father Hennepin was 
made a prisoner in 1680, and by them that 
the death of the good father was for a time 
seriously meditated for the prize of his 
priestly vestments. The Yanktons and the 
Tintonwans lived west of the Mississippi. 

I See the paper in this volume entiUe^t The First Meet- 
ing with the Dahkotahs. 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 211 

The Tintonwans were the fiercest and also the 
most westerly of the Dahkotahs. They dwelt 
on the plains. Their name, indeed, indicates 
their place of habitation ; it means dwellers 
in the prairie. The number of the Dah- 
kotahs — taking them in all their branches — 
originally was large, and continued to be 
so down to recent years. It was placed by 
the earliest French writers at forty thousand. 
In 1763 Lieutenant James Gorrell, the British 
officer in command at Detroit, placed it at 
thirty thousand. In 1852 Rev. Stephen R. 
Riggs, a missionary among the Dahkotahs, 
thought it to be twenty-five thousand. In 
1837 the Issanti division ceded all its lands 
east of the Mississippi to the United States, 
and retired to the region of the St. Peter's 
river in Minnesota. Besides the Meddewa- 
kantonwan band of the Issanti, there was also 
the Wakpekute. This band was in constant 
war with the Sacs and Foxes of Iowa until 
the removal of the latter from Iowa territory 
in the year 1845. There w^ere two chiefs of 
the Wakpekute : Wamdisapa or Black Eagle 
and Tasagi. Wamdisapa and his immediate 
followers were savages of such unusual fero- 
city and ardor that they could not dwell at 
peace even with their own band. They there- 
fore separated from it and went west to the 



212 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

lands on the Vermillion river. So complete 
was this separation that in 1851, when the 
Issanti tribe ceded the territory owned by 
them in Minnesota, Wamdisapa's contingent 
was not deemed a part of the Wakpekute 
band and was not asked to join in the treaty. 
Among the followers of Wamdisapa was a 
brave by the name of Sidominaduta. On 
Wamdisapa's death this brave became chief of 
the band. He was holding this position at 
the time of the settlement of the country 
about Fort Dodge in Iowa, and with his band 
was often in the vicinity of the Fort. He 
was always regarded with distrust and fear by 
the settlers. One winter's day in 1854 he 
was found dead upon the prairie. An aged 
crone who was living in his family, his squaw 
and two of his children were found dead in 
his lodge. They all had been killed by a 
trader named Henry Lott, who immediately 
afterwards had burned his dwelling and fled 
the state. According to the story told by 
those of the chief's family who survived, (a 
boy twelve, and a girl ten, years old) Lott 
and his son one morning had met the chief 
near his lodge and urged him to go in quest 
of some elk which they said they had seen 
feeding in the bottom lands. Thereupon the 
chief had taken his rifle, mounted a pony and 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 213 

ridden off. Lott and his son had stealthily- 
followed him and shot him. At night on the 
same day the settler and his son, disguised as 
Indians, had come to Sidominaduta's lodge 
and killed his entire family, save themselves; 
they had escaped by hiding. In spite of the 
evil reputation of the leading victim of this 
tragedy, no cause for Lott's act ever could be 
found, and a wish by the Indians to avenge it 
no doubt had something to do with subse- 
quent events. 

Sidominaduta being dead, his brother, 
Inkpaduta, or Scarlet Point, who also had 
been a follower of Wamdisapa, became chief. 
Inkpaduta fully sustained the reputation for 
ferocity borne by both his predecessors in 
office. He had killed, it is said, Wamdisapa's 
co-chief, Tasagi, because of Tasagi's com- 
parative mildness of disposition, and to open 
the way for the elevation of his own family 
to the chieftainship. He was six feet tall, of 
strong frame, his face ugly and deeply pitted 
by small-pox. No picturesque sight could he 
have been as he lounged in his tepee sur- 
rounded by dirty, screeching, fighting chil- 
dren, and squaws of an exterior and deport- 
ment as little prepossessing ; the whole party 
— if in the game country— greedily despatch- 
ing a meal of uncooked bison's liver; and, 



2 14 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

if on short commons, still more greedily 
devouring half-singed skunk meat or putres- 
cent fish. He must have appeared positively 
terrifying and revolting when decked for 
war ; his face daubed with black streaks, eagles' 
feathers in his hair, and malignant light lurk- 
ing in his eyes. 

In 1856, some six or seven families, embrac- 
ing forty persons, built cabins for themselves 
along Minnewaukon and the Okobogi lakes. 
At a point in Minnesota (now the town of 
Jackson) eighteen miles north from the lakes, 
a half dozen families also had built cabins. 
Forty miles to the south of the lakes were a 
few other settlers. To the east, near where 
Emmetsburg now stands, were five or six more 
families. There were also some scattered 
farmsteads to the southwest along the Little 
Sioux river. All were about equally new and 
raw, and about equally exposed upon the 
frontier. The winter of 1856-7, in Minnesota 
and Iowa especially, was memorable for sever- 
ity and for long duration. It began early in 
December and continued far into April. 
Snow fell to a depth of three feet on level 
ground. High winds prevailed, and whenever 
the ground or objects offered a sufficient ob- 
struction, immense drifts accumulated. More- 
over, it was fiercely cold ; ice formed with 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 21 5 

almost instantaneous quickness. In the well 
settled parts of Iowa roads were blockaded 
business brought to a stop, and great suffering 
entailed. How life fared with the pioneers of 
the lake country, most of us can with difficulty 
imagine. Their houses were of logs, entrance 
to which was barred only by rude, wooden 
doors, hung on wooden hinges and fastened 
by wooden latch pieces. Many of them had 
no floors. In others prairie grass had been 
spread over the ground and secured in place by 
a covering of rag carpet. Heat was obtained 
from the stove on which the scant meals of the 
family were cooked. There were no supplies, 
other than game, except as they were brought 
from points distant nearly a hundred miles. 
It was at night, more especially, that a sharp 
sense of the solitude and isolation of their 
position was forced upon these people. The 
hard lakes gleamed in the clear light of the 
moon. All else of nature was snow hidden ; 
mystic, beautiful, yet inexpressibly desolate 
and waste. Wolves cried, and the snapping 
and cracking of the frost-pervaded forest 
raised in the minds of the startled hearer 
visions none the less appalling that they were 
ill-defined. Or it was a night (and there 
were many such at the lakes) on which a 
blizzard, a visitation literally from the land 



2l6 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

of the Dahkotahs, was sweeping down upon 
the settlement. The north wind — the veri- 
table Kabibonokka of Indian legend — 

" Howled and hurried southward." 

Before it were driven the fine snow crystals, 
pitiless upon the cheek as powdered glass. 
They sifted through the chinks of the cabins, 
accumulating in little piles upon the flooring, 
upon the bed clothes and upon the faces of 
the sleeping children. On such a night there 
was absolutely no safety without. A strong 
man would have perished twenty paces from 
his own door. 

At last, after many weeks marked by 
weather such as has just been described, there 
came a milder and less tempestuous season. 
It was March. Indians were encamped at 
different points about the lakes and on the 
Des Moines river. There were some Yank- 
tons and there was Inkpaduta's band. Around 
Minnewaukon were twenty tepees ; near 
Springfield (Jackson) Minnesota were fifteen 
or twenty more. There also were four or 
five at Big Island Grove, a place some six 
miles southeast from where now is the town 
of Estherville. This last mentioned camp 
was presided over by the chief Ishtabahah or 
Sleepy-Eye. It was the opinion of Major 
William Williams, who led the relief expedi- 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 21 7 

tion — to be described later on — that this mar- 
shalling of Indians betokened a plan on their 
part to devastate and depopulate northwestern 
Iowa. Be that as it may, I am now to relate 
the events which actually transpired. 

On the morning of March 8th, the family 
of Rowland Gardner — a settler living on the 
south shore of Lake West Okobogi — rose 
early so that Gardner himself might gain 
time for the journey to Fort Dodge on 
which he was to start that day. Rowland 
Gardner's family comprised his wife, a 
daughter of thirteen, a son of about six, a 
married daughter, her husband, her little 
son, and her infant. While breakfast was 
in progress, an Indian entered and asked 
for food. He was at once given a seat at the 
table with the family. Soon other Indians 
came until the cabin was filled with fifteen 
braves together with their squaws and pa- 
pooses. They were no other than Inkpaduta 
and his band. All were liberally provided 
with such food as the family had in store and 
ate greedily until satisfied. They then be- 
came insolent : demanded ammunition and 
many things besides. One of them snatched 
a box of gun caps from the hand of Gardner ; 
another tried to seize from the wall a horn of 
powder, but in this was foiled by Gardner's 



21 8 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

son-in-law, Luce. The Indian who had been 
foiled then drew up his rifle, apparently to 
kill Luce, but did not discharge the weapon. 
At this juncture two of the neighboring set- 
tlers. Dr. Isaac Harriot and Bertell Snyder, 
called at the Gardner cabin to leave letters to 
be taken to Fort Dodge. Gardner told them 
he could not leave his family that day as the 
Indians evidently were in an ugly mood. 
Harriot and Snyder made light of this opin- 
ion, did some trading with Inkpaduta's party, 
and then went to their own cabin on the 
peninsula between the Lakes East and West 
Okobogi. At noon the Indians left the Gard- 
ner house and strolled off toward that of 
another settler, James Mattock, which stood 
near the cabin of Harriot and Snyder. A con- 
sultation was then held by the inmates of the 
Gardner house. It was decided to warn the 
other settlers. At about two o'clock Luce, 
and a man by the name of Clarke, who seems 
temporarily to have been staying with the 
Gardners, set forth on this errand. At about 
three o'clock the report of rifles discharged 
in rapid succession reached the Gardners from 
the direction of the Mattock cabin. After 
some two hours of wearing anxiety and sus- 
pense, Gardner unbarred his door and went 
out to reconnoiter the ground. He hastily 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 219 

returned, saying that nine Indians were ap- 
proaching the house and that the inmates 
were all doomed to die. He wished, how- 
ever, to barricade the door and make a de- 
termined fight. This his wife and married 
daughter persuaded him not to do, but still 
further to trust to the policy of conciliation. 
It was now five o'clock. The day had been 
one of exceptionally fine weather. The sun 
had risen in a cloudless sky and the sky was yet 
clear and blue as he neared his setting. A huge 
ball of flame he sank slowly beneath the 
horizon lighting up the lakes and the whit- 
ened prairie with a crimson glow. The nine 
Indians who had been approaching now 
entered the cabin. One of them roughly 
demanded meal. Gardner turned to get it, 
and was instantly shot through the heart. 
The women, excepting Abigal Gardner, the 
daughter of thirteen, were then beaten over 
the head by the Indians with the butts of 
their rifles, dragged into the cabin dooryard, 
and scalped. What next occurred is best 
told in Abigal Gardner's own words. She 
says : " During these awful scenes I was 
seated in a chair, holding my sister's baby in' 
my arms ; her little boy on one side, and my 
little brother on the other, clinging to me in 
terror. They seized the children, tearing 



220 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

them from me one by one, while they reached 
their little arms to me, crying piteously for 
protection that I was powerless to give. 
Heedless of their cries, they dragged them 
out of doors and beat them to death with 
sticks of stovewood." 

Abigal Gardner was made a captive by the 
Indians and taken to their camp which had 
been erected about the Mattock cabin. Here 
she was met by a sight no less terrible than 
that which she had just beheld. It was night, 
but the woods were illuminated, both by the 
camp fires of the Indians, and by the flames 
of the burning cabin. Scattered over the 
ground were the mutilated remains of eleven 
persons, men, women, and children. Within 
the burning cabin were two more victims, not 
yet dead, but rending the air with shrieks of 
agony as the flames devoured them. There 
were some slight evidences of resistance on 
the part of the settlers. Dr. Harriot lay with 
a broken rifle grasped in his hand. Rifles 
were lying near the bodies of Mattock and 
Snyder. Their work of death finished for 
the present, the savages celebrated it by the 
war-dance. " Near the ghastly corpses and 
over the blood-stained snow;" says Abigal 
Gardner, " with blackened faces and fierce 
uncouth gestures; and with wild screams and 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 221 

yells, they circled round and round, keeping 
time to the dullest, dreariest sound of drum 
and rattle, until complete exhaustion com- 
pelled them to desist." 

The next day the cabins belonging to the 
other settlers about the lakes were visited by 
Inkpaduta and his party, and the inmates 
either shot or brained with clubs. The wives 
of three of the settlers, Noble, Thatcher, and 
Marble, were taken captive as had been the 
daughter of Rowland Gardner. The Indians 
then made ready to quit the country of the 
three lakes and Iowa. Before doing so, how- 
ever, they peeled a section of bark from a 
large tree that stood near the Marble cabin, 
on the west shore of Minnewaukon, and on 
the white surface thus exposed left in picture 
writing a record of their deeds. The num- 
ber of persons killed by them (thirty-two in 
all) was indicated with entire accuracy by 
rude sketches of human figures transfixed 
with arrows. There was also a sketch of the 
Mattock cabin in flames. 

The fact of this massacre in the lake region 
of Iowa was discovered on March 9th by 
Morris Markham, a man who had been liv- 
ing at the house of Noble and Thatcher, but 
who was absent when the attack by the In- 
dians was made. He fled with the news to 



22 2 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

Springfield, Minnesota. He also communi- 
cated it to two settlers upon the Des Moines 
who carried it to Fort Dodge. There at first 
it was deemed an idle tale. But on March 
2 2d, three men well known in Fort Dodge 
returned from a prospecting trip to the shores 
of Minnewaukon and the Okobogis and con- 
firmed what already had been heard. 

An expedition, composed of nearly one 
hundred men from Webster City and Fort 
Dodge, was at once organized at the latter 
place to go to the lakes. Supplies for the 
journey were carried in wagons drawn by 
teams of oxen and horses. Among the men 
was Cyrus C. Carpenter afterwards gov- 
ernor of Iowa. The party was under the 
command of Major William Williams of Fort 
Dodge, a man of much experience with the 
Indians. The start was made on March 25th. 
Great difficulty was found in marching. The 
weather for a time had been mild, and the 
depressions in the prairie were covered by a 
mass of snow and water, three or four feet 
deep. In order to break a road for the wag- 
ons, the men were formed in a solid column 
and marched forward several rods. They 
were then faced about and marched back 
over the same course. Next the wagons 
were unhitched from the teams and driven 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 223 

ahead by the united strength of the com- 
mand. When stopped by an accumulation 
of snow in front, shovels were resorted to 
and the obstruction cleared away for another 
advance. The horses and oxen proved to be 
much harder to drive forward than had the 
wagons. They sank to their bellies in the 
snow and slush and became utterly helpless. 
They were only rescued by hard pushing, 
pulling, and lifting. On the 28th, the party 
reached a place called Shippey's, on Cylinder 
Creek. On the 29th, they reached the Irish 
colony near where now is the town of Em- 
metsburg. On the 30th, they came to Big 
Island Grove on Mud, now High, lake. 

Here they discovered evidences that their 
of approach had been watched by the band 
Ishtabahah or Sleepy-Eye. On Big Island, 
which stands in the middle of the lake, 
grew a tall cedar tree, and in its branches, 
forty feet from the ground, the Indians had 
built a platform. From this elevation it was 
possible to see a distance of twenty miles in 
all directions. Fires were yet smouldering 
where the Indians had made their camp ; 
several fish were lying on the ice of the lake 
near holes which but recently had been cut ; 
a half-finished canoe was upon the lake shore. 
On the 31st, the command of Major Williams 



224 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

met a party of twenty fugitives from Min- 
nesota, and learned from them that, a few 
days after the massacre in Iowa, Inkpaduta's 
band, together with a number of Yanktons, 
had made an attack on Springfield. Several 
settlers had been killed, but they had escaped 
and were fleeing to Fort Dodge for safety. 
This party consisted of three men and seven- 
teen women and children. Some of them 
had been painfully wounded in the attack, 
and all were suffering from cold, hunger, and 
exhaustion. They were sent to the Irish set- 
tlement by Major Williams, and the advance 
continued. On April ist, the command 
reached Granger's Point, near where Esther- 
ville now stands, and also near the Minnesota 
line. During the preparations for encamp- 
ment, a mounted soldier of the regular army 
was seen approaching. From him it was 
learned that troops from Fort Ridgley, Min- 
nesota, were then at Springfield, and that 
Inkpaduta's band and their allies, the Yank- 
ton band, had escaped. 

This news was highly unwelcome and dis- 
heartening to the volunteers, as they had 
hoped to reach the lakes in time to inflict 
punishment upon the perpetrators of the 
massacre. But further advance would have 
been useless, and on the morning of April 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 225 

2d, the entire command, save a squad of 
twenty-six men which was sent out to inter 
the dead bodies at the lakes, faced about and 
began their homeward march. On April 4th, 
Major Williams with the main party reached 
the banks of Cylinder Creek. The weather 
was warm and had melted the snow so rapidly 
that the creek was out of its banks and the 
prairie inundated as far as the eye could see. 
The men were weary ; their clothes torn and 
wet ; their boots soaked. Moreover they were 
without food and the materials for a fire. 
While in this exposed place and in this 
reduced condition, the weather suddenly 
changed. At about four o'clock in the after- 
noon, the wind swept into the north and 
began blowing a gale. It grew intensely 
cold. The air was filled with fine snow and 
sleet. In short, a blizzard — that terror of 
the plains in the Northwest— had broken and 
was fast swinging into full career. Nothing 
remained for the command but to go into 
camp for the night where they were, bleak 
and inhospitable though the spot. Accord- 
ingly they removed the canvas top to the one 
wagon which they still had with them, and 
spread it, together with some tent cloth, 
across the wagon body. They then staked 
the sides of this covering, as best they were 



226 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

able, to the frozen earth. Snow was banked 
up against the improvised shelter on all sides 
save the south, where an opening had been 
left for ingress. Opposite this opening they 
stationed the horses. The party then made 
with their blankets a bed in common, and 
crept into it. At intervals it became neces- 
sary to renew the embankment of snow which 
the terrible wind had scattered. Here, with- 
out fire, without food, in frozen garments, 
and with the thermometer thirty-four degrees 
below zero, the command remained huddled 
together from Saturday night until Monday 
morning. On that morning, April 6th, the 
storm subsided. The waters of Cylinder 
Creek were found to be hard ice, and on this 
a crossing was made. Writing in 1887, Ex- 
Governor Cyrus C. Carpenter said: "Since 
that experience on Cylinder Creek, I have 
marched with armies engaged in actual war. 
During three and one half years of service 
the army with which I was connected marched 
from Cairo to Chattanooga; from Chatta- 
nooga to Atlanta; from Atlanta to the Sea; 
from the Sea, through the Carolinas, to Rich- 
mond. These campaigns were made under 
southern suns and in the cold rains and not 
infrequent snow storms of southern winters. 
They were sometimes continued for three or 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON, 227 

four days and nights in succession, with only 
an occasional halt to give weary, foot-sore 
soldiers a chance to boil a cup of coffee. 
But I never, in these weary years, experienced 
a conflict with the elements that could be 
compared with that of the two nights and 
one day that I passed on the banks of Cylin- 
der Creek." 

It was near this creek that the detachment 
which had gone to the lakes to bury the dead 
there, rejoined the command. They had 
suffered even more grievously than their 
companions. On reaching the place of the 
massacre, they had dug shallow trenches in 
the hard soil and deposited within them the 
stiff and mangled bodies of the settlers. They 
had then started back. They had waded 
sloughs waist deep ; had tramped to and fro 
all the night of the blizzard in order to keep 
from succumbing to stupor and perishing ; 
had terribly frozen their feet. Some of 
them, finding their feet useless, had crept 
weary distances on their hands and knees. 
Some had become delirious and bled at the 
mouth. Two of their number had become 
separated from the others and lost. In 
fact they had died of cold and exhaustion 
upon the prairie where their bones, identified 
as theirs by the rusty rifle barrels beside 



228 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON, 

them, were not found until eleven years after- 
wards. 

With the arrival of the survivors of this de- 
tachment in the camp of Major Williams, the 
expedition, as an organized affair, came to an 
end. The men separated and found their 
way home in various sad plights and by dif- 
ferent ways. 

In the meanwhile Abigal Gardner and her 
three sister captives were trudging painfully 
towards the Northwest as slaves and menials 
in the train of Inkpaduta. Aside from the 
captives and the Indian women and children, 
the individuals comprised in this train were 
Makpeahotoman, or Roaring Cloud, son of 
Inkpaduta; Makpiopeta, or Fire Cloud, also 
son of Inkpaduta; Tawachehawakon, or His 
Mysterious Father ; Bahata, or Old Man ; 
Kechoman, or Putting on as he Walks; Kah- 
odat, or Ratling, son-in-law of Inkpaduta; 
Fetoatonka, or Big Face ; Tatelidashinksha- 
mani, or He who makes a crooked Wind as 
he Walks ; Tachonchegahota, or His Great 
Gun ; Husan, or One Leg, and perhaps two 
or three others. One of the braves was 
wounded and was borne in a litter. He had 
sustained his wound at the hands of Dr. Har- 
riot, and was the only member of Inkpaduta's 
band injured at the lakes. Through the day- 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 229 

time it was the lot of the captives to carry on 
their backs enormous burdens. They were 
not provided with snow-shoes, as were the 
Indians, and consequently made but slow and 
toilsome progress. At evening they deposited 
their loads, cut fire-wood, and aided in erect- 
ing the tepees. These exactions came hardest 
upon the wife of Thatcher. When captured 
her nursing child had been torn from her 
breast and killed. In her susceptible con- 
dition exposure gave her cold, and she was 
attacked by fever. An abscess formed in one 
of her breasts. One of her legs swelled to 
twice its natural size, turned black, and burst 
some of the blood vessels. Despite all this 
she was granted no respite from labor. She 
marched under a heavy pack, as did the other 
women, and with them struggled through 
snow drifts and the cold water (the latter at 
times waist deep) of creeks and sloughs. One 
day, soon after the attack on Springfield, the 
band halted for rest near a stream bordered 
by clumps of willow. While there the Indians 
descried a company of the Fort Ridgley 
regulars far away on the prairie. In feverish 
excitement the former hid their squaws and 
plunder among the willows, loaded their rifles 
with ball, and set a guard over the captives, 
while one of the band climbed into a tall tree 



230 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

near by to see if the troops would advance or 
retire. The order to those guarding the cap- 
tives was short and explicit : to shoot them 
on the instant if the troops advanced. The 
troops did not advance, as the Indians were 
not discovered by them, and were thought to 
be a journey of two or three days' in the 
lead. 

The country through which the Indians 
were taking their way was entirely wild, and 
hence fitted to exert upon the mind that pe- 
culiar effect of mingled charm and awe which 
only wild places can. In it was the famed 
pipe-stone quarry whence, from time imme- 
morial, the Dahkotahs had obtained the beau- 
tiful material for their calumets : the material 
from which had been made the pipe smoked 
by Radisson and Groseilliers on the occasion 
of their first meeting with the Dahkotahs in 
1662 — a pipe the size and appearance of which 
had much impressed Radisson. The quarry 
is situated in an alluvial flat which is walled 
in on all sides by bluffs and cliffs. At one 
spot in this flat is a huge boulder supported 
upon a table-rock of smooth and glistening 
surface. On both the boulder and its sup- 
porting rock have been graved the figures of 
lizards, snakes, otters, Indian gods, rabbits 
with cloven feet, muskrats with human feet, 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 23I 

and other strange things. According to the 
legend, these figures were traced by the hand 
of Gitche Manito, the mighty. A party of 
Yankton and Tintonwan Dahkotahs one sul- 
try day had assembled at the quarry to dig 
pipe-stone. Suddenly there came from the 
sky heavy peals of thunder and zig zag flashes 
of lightning. The Indians ran to their lodges 
in terror of what they thought to be an ap- 
proaching tempest. But on peering forth 
from their shelter, instead of a tempest they 
beheld a tall pillar of smoke resting upon the 
boulder. For a time it swayed to and fro, 
then gradually assumed the shape of a giant. 
With one long arm the figure pointed toward 
heaven and with the other to the rock at its 
feet. Again there were peals of thunder and 
vivid flashes of lightning which drove the 
Indians into the depths of their lodges. 
Again they looked forth, but this time saw 
nothing unusual ; the giant had disappeared 
from the boulder, and only twilight held pos- 
session of the valley. On visiting the boulder 
the next morning, however, the Dahkotahs 
found both it and the table-rock beneath 
it covered with the mysterious emblems 
above described. According to another 
version of the legend, (the one made use 
of by Longfellow), Gitche Manito, the 



232 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

mighty, after impressing the figures on the 
rocks, 

" Smoked the calumet, the peace-pipe, 
As a signal to the nations;" 

******** 

And in silence all the warriors 
Broke the red stone of the quarry, 
Smoothed and formed it into peace-pipes, 
Broke the long reeds by the river. 
Decked them with their brightest feathers." 

Familiar with these ancient legends of their 
nation, Inkpaduta's band stopped at the pipe- 
stone quarry and spent a day in the agreeable 
occupation of studying the pictured rocks 
and of shaping pipe bowls. 

At the end of six weeks from the date of 
the massacre, the Indians reached the Big 
Sioux river at about where now stands the 
town of Flandrau, South Dakota. The scen- 
ery was striking. " From the summit of the 
bluffs," writes Abigal Gardner, could be seen 
"thousands of acres of richest vale and undu- 
lating prairie," through which, ''winding 
along like a monstrous serpent, was the river, 
its banks fringed with maple, oak, and elm." 
While crossing this river on a natural bridge 
of uprooted trees and brush, one of the cap- 
tives, the wife of Thatcher, was pushed into 
the stream by a young brave, and her attempts 
to gain the shore thwarted by him and others 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 233 

of the band, who forced her back into the 
current with long poles. As she was drifting 
away she was shot. From this time on wan- 
dering bands of Yanktons were occasionally 
met, and to them the members of Inkpaduta's 
band would narrate with savage glee the 
deeds which they had done in the country of 
Minnewaukon and the Okobogi lakes. The 
wife of Marble, after much bargaining, was 
purchased by two Indians belonging to one 
of these bands and brought to Charles E. 
Flandrau, agent of the United States govern- 
ment for the Sioux Indians at the agency on 
the Yellow Medicine river, in Minnesota. 
The fate of Noble's wife was like that of Mrs. 
Thatcher. She was killed by her captors. 
She had resisted Inkpaduta's son. Roaring 
Cloud, in some excessive demand and there- 
upon was immediately brained by him with a 
club. 

It was now early June. "The prairie," 
says Abigal Gardner, *'as boundless as the 
ocean, was decked and beautified with a car- 
pet of various shades of green, luxuriant 
grass. The trees along the streams put forth 
their leaves which quivered on the stems. 
The bird.s, arrayed in their gayest plumage, 
flitted among the trees and sang their sweetest 
songs, while the air was redolent of the per- 



234 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

fume of countless flowers." " We crossed one 
prairie so vast and so perfectly devoid of 
timber that for days not even a hazel-brush 
or a sprout large enough for a riding-whip 
could be found. The sensation produced by 
being thus lost, as it were, on the boundless 
prairie was really oppressive. Exhausted as 
I was, and preoccupied as my mind was by 
other things, I still could not ignore the nov- 
elty of the situation. As we attained the 
more elevated points the scene was really 
sublime. Look in any direction, and the 
grassy plain was bounded only by the horizon. 
Then we would journey on for miles till we 
reached another elevation, and the same 
limitless expanse of grass lay around us. 
This was repeated day after day, till it seemed 
as if we were in another world. I almost 
despaired of ever seeing a tree again. The 
only things to be seen, except grass, were 
wild fowl, birds, buffalo, and antelope. The 
supply of buffalo seemed almost as limitless 
as the grass. This was their own realm, and 
they showed no inclination to surrender it, 
not even to the Sioux." 

At one point in this prairie, (the scene per- 
chance of some hard battle of long ago) was 
found an Indian place of the dead. Scaffolds 
of poles, eight or nine feet high, fifteen feet 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 235 

long, and six feet wide, had been erected and 
on them in compact rows had been laid a 
great number of bodies. Only the bones of 
these now were left ; in some instances cast 
to the ground by the winds. The Indians 
paused at this place of the dead and closely 
examined its relics, especially the skulls. 
These they took in their hands, bent and 
chattered over them ; then carefully replaced 
them upon the ground or scaffolds. 

Not long after the death of Noble's wife, 
Inkpaduta's party arrived at the James river. 
Here, on the spot where is now the town of Old 
Ashton, South Dakotah, was a Yankton en- 
campment comprising one hundred and 
ninety lodges. These Indians evidently had 
never before seen a Caucasian. They stared 
at Abigal Gardner in complete amazement, 
commenting on the light color of her hair 
and eyes. Still more astonished were they 
when her white arms were exposed to them 
and the fact communicated that, when first a 
captive, her face (since reddened by paint 
and exposure) was as white as were now her 
arms. The rifle was as yet an unfamiliar 
weapon to this large band. Only the club, 
spear, and the bow and arrow were visible 
about their persons or in their tepees. 

At this time Abigal Gardner had given up 



236 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

all hope of being rescued. At each remove 
her captors were leading her deeper into the 
wilderness. A life in a Dahkotah lodge or 
as a beast of burden to a Dahkotah warrior 
upon the trail seemed to be all that the future 
held in store. But, after the recovery of Mrs. 
Marble, the Indian agent, Flandrau, and 
Governor Medary, of Minnesota Territory, 
had diligently set about effecting the ransom 
of the remaining captive; and while yet in the 
Yankton camp she was purchased by Indian 
emissaries from the Agency on the Yellow 
Medicine. During the negotiations prelim- 
inary to the purchase. Miss Gardner's captors 
indulged themselves in a piece of fiendish 
pleasantry. They told her that she was to be 
put to death. The manner of her death was 
differently described by different braves. 
Some by appropriate gestures signified to her 
that she was to be cut in small bits, begin- 
ning with her fingers and toes and ending 
with her heart ; others that she was to be 
drowned ; still others that she was to be 
burned at the stake. But at length a bargain 
with her deliverers was struck and she was 
given into their hands. The price paid for 
her was two horses, twelve blankets, two kegs 
of powder, twenty pounds of tobacco, thirty- 
two yards of blue squaw cloth, thirty-seven 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 237 

and a half yards of calico and ribbon, and 
some other small articles. Her restoration to 
liberty and civilization was now not long 
delayed. Before her final leave taking, how- 
ever, Matowaken, the great chief of the Dah- 
kotahs, made her a gift. It was made to her, 
she was told, in recognition of the fortitude 
of spirit which she had displayed in captivity, 
and was, at least from the point of view of a 
Dahkotah, of inestimable value. It consisted 
of an Indian head-dress elaborately and skil- 
fully made. The foundation of it was a close 
fitting cap of finely dressed buckskin. Around 
this, so as to form a crest, were set thirty-six 
of the largest feathers of the war eagle. These 
feathers were painted black at the tips, then 
pink and black alternately in broad bands to 
the base of the crest. Below the base of the 
crest, the cap was covered with the white fur 
of the weasel, the tails of the animal hanging 
as pendants. 

That Inkpaduta himself, or that any one of 
his band, except Roaring Cloud, ever suffered 
punishment for his bloody deeds in Iowa is 
doubtful in the extreme. For a time the an- 
nuities were withheld from the whole Dah- 
kotah nation, the threat being that they would 
only be renewed upon the delivery of Inkpa- 
duta and his followers to the government for 



238 THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 

trial. But this action so incensed the Indians, 
and put in such jeopardy the lives of settlers 
among them, that it was discontinued upon 
a representation made to the authorities by 
the chief Little Crow that he had pursued 
Inkpaduta's band and killed three of his 
braves. It was Little Crow who in 1862 
directed the memorable massacre of settlers 
along the St. Peter's river in Minnesota. The 
probability of his statement that he had 
wreaked vengeance upon Inkpaduta in behalf 
of the whites is certainly somewhat shaken in 
view of his own subsequent career. Accord- 
ing to every indication Inkpaduta, so far from 
being to Little Crow an object of abhorrence, 
was his model. Roaring Cloud was killed. 
He ventured back to the Yellow Medicine to 
woo, it is said, some Indian maiden. But his 
presence was revealed by an enemy, and a 
detachment of soldiers from Fort Ridgley 
hemmed in the spot where he was. He fought 
his pursuers, but soon fell pierced by many 
balls. 

In December, 1883, Abigal Gardner, for 
the first time since 1858, again stood within 
the walls of the cabin built by Rowland Gard- 
ner, her father. She says: *' All the years 
that had intervened seemed obliterated, and 
everything appeared the same as in the time 



THE TRAGEDY AT MINNEWAUKON. 239 

long gone. The snow-covered ground, the oak 
trees with the seared leaves clinging to their 
boughs, all were the same as on that eventful 
night. As the shadows darkened, I could 
almost see the dusky forms of the savages file 
up to the door-way, rifles in hand ; crowd 
into the house ; shoot my father when his 
back was turned ; drive my mother and sister 
out of doors ; kill them with the butts of 
their guns ; tear the children from my arms 

and beat them to death with clubs 

Having retired to rest, the swarthy creatures 
seemed all about me murdering, plundering. 

Again when the morning broke and 

I heard the prattle of the children of the 
household, it seemed as though they were the 
very same whose merry voices had been so 
suddenly changed to dying groans. I could 
hardly realize that twenty-seven years lay 
between that dreadful night and this morn- 
ing's waking." 



II 



1 



